On September 5, Singaporean MC Subhas Nair was sentenced to six weeks in jail for attempting to incite ill will among different racial and religious groups with his online posts. In July, he was found guilty of four charges related to the statements he made online between 2019 and 2021. The judge agreed with the prosecutor that Subhas Nair’s video and statements about a Chinese actor putting on brownface in an ad could be amplified and spread by social media, and cause harm to specific religious groups as well as society at large.

In 2019, Subhas Nair made a YouTube video criticizing anyone who is doing brownface as well as drawing attention to the alleged unequal treatment of the city’s races. While there are 5.6 million people in Singapore, many people complain that the ethnic Chinese majority gets preferential treatment from authorities in many ways. Subhas Nair, who is a Singaporean of Indian descent, first got a warning about the YouTube video. Later, he commented that a Chinese man who killed an Indian man at Orchid Towers got a lenient sentence because of his race.

Singapore, home to ethnic Indian and Muslim Malay minorities alongside the Chinese majorities, had very strict laws against sowing racial or religious discord or division, which can be punishable by up to three years in jail. Subhas Nair’s lawyer said they will appeal the conviction and sentence.

[News from Yahoo]