SINGAPORE, Aug 14 — A 30-year-old man was charged yesterday with posting Instagram Stories threatening the Singapore judiciary and a High Court judge, who had dismissed three constitutional challenges to the law criminalising consensual sex between men in March.
Muhammad Hanif Mohamed Huzairi faces two charges of using threatening words under the Protection from Harassment Act, and three charges of communicating an electronic record containing an incitement to violence, on March 30.
He had allegedly directed one of his posts towards Justice See Kee Oon, who had dismissed the challenges seeking to strike down the legal provision against male homosexual acts in Section 377A of the Penal Code.
Court documents stated that Hanif purportedly wrote the Instagram Stories, which remain on a user’s profile for 24 hours, from about 4pm to 8pm that evening.
He is accused of writing:
- To the deadass boomer of a judge who dismissed the challenges against 377A, you better f***ing watch out!!
- Homophobic judges need to be put down immediately.
- Time to hunt down the oppressive judges, who basically maintained the legislation of discrimination against us, and make them pay the ultimate price, posted as a comment on Pink Dot SG’s Instagram post
- Gonna begin my work work [sic] on some death curses to be inflicted upon the oppressive judicial (expletive)
- Can we please torture the corrupted judges until they f***ing crumble & repeal S377A on the spot!? Pretty please; I’d love to personally torture them to their breaking point
Court documents stated that Assistant Professor Benjamin Joshua Ong, who specialises in constitutional law at the Singapore Management University, saw one of the posts.
It is unclear if he reported Hanif to the police.
Hanif remains out on a S$15,000 (RM45,801) bail, and intends to plead guilty on August 26.
If convicted of using threatening words towards a public servant, he could be jailed up to a year, fined up to S$5,000 or both.
If convicted of communicating an electronic record containing an incitement to violence, he could be jailed up to five years, fined or both.
The Section 377A civil suits were brought by three gay men — disc jockey Johnson Ong Ming, 43, former executive director of advocacy group Oogachaga Bryan Choong, 42, and retired general practitioner Roy Tan Seng Kee, 61 — who challenged the constitutionality of Section 377A.
The cases were mounted following an Indian court’s decision to lift a ban on consensual gay sex in September 2018.
In dismissing them, Justice See ruled that the High Court was bound by the principles of legal precedent by the nation’s highest court, the Court of Appeal, in its reasoning and conclusions in a case in 2014, which was the last time a challenge was mounted to the legal provision. — TODAY
