Singapore couple gets eight weeks in jail for sedition

Jun 10, 2009, 8:34 GMT

   Singapore - A Singapore court Wednesday sentenced a Christian couple to eight weeks in jail each for distributing 'seditious or objectionable' publications to Muslims, a media report said.

   Ong Kian Cheong, 50, and his wife, Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, 46, had distributed two booklets by US publisher and comic author Jack Chick, which, according to the judge, could spark ill-will or hostility between Christians and Muslims in Singapore.

   The pair claimed ignorance in their defence, saying they did not know the contents of the booklets and had no reason to believe they had a seditious tendency, the online edition of Straits Times newspaper reported.

   In 2007, the Protestant couple mailed Jack Chick's controversial booklets titled The Little Bride and Who is Allah? to three Muslims who complained to the police. Both publications are critical of Islam.

   When the couple were arrested in January last year, police seized more than 400 copies of 11 seditious comics from their home, the report said.

   As a multi-racial city state, Singapore clamps down on anyone who is seen to incite tensions in the community.

   Singapore's population is mostly ethnic Chinese but also has significant numbers of Indians, Malay Muslims and other groups.