An outspoken Singaporean blogger wins asylum in America
The judge says Singaporean prosecutors picked on him for his political views
LIKE many teenage boys, Amos Yee, a Singaporean blogger, is crude, insensitive and confrontational. In 2015, just days after the death of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founder and long-time leader, Mr Yee posted a profanity-laced video to his YouTube channel calling Lee “a horrible person”, an “awful leader” and a “dictator”. For a small part of that video (around 30 of its 519 seconds), he also mocked Christianity. He challenged Lee Hsien Loong, Lee’s son and Singapore’s current prime minister, to “come at me, motherfucker”.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “No place for the crass”
Asia April 1st 2017
From the April 1st 2017 edition
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