According to Al Arabiya:
Singapore charges two for anti-Islam pamphlet- - - - - - - - -
Singapore authorities have charged a Christian couple with sedition after they distributed pamphlets that negatively portrayed Islam, court documents showed on Thursday.
Ong Kian Cheong and Dorothy Chan, both in their late-forties, were charged by a lower court on Tuesday under the sedition act for distributing evangelical cartoon pamphlets titled “The Little Bride” to two people last year.
The pamphlet, published by gospel literature publisher Chick, tells a story of a young Christian girl who warns her friends about the pitfalls of becoming Muslim and describes the religion as “dangerous”.
The pair could face a fine of up to S$10,000 (7,370 U.S. dollars) and imprisonment of 3 years. They are out on S$10,000 bail each and their passports have been taken away.
The government of the ethnically mixed Southeast Asian city of 4.6 million is highly sensitive about race and religion. It says strict legislation and regulation of the media is needed to ensure peace.
In Singapore, 51 percent of the population is Buddhist, 14.9 percent Muslim and 14.6 percent Christian.
I notice the proselytizing couple were handing out “Chick tracts”, which are familiar to many Americans. I make no apologies for Chick — his pamphlets display a dumbed-down caricature of Christianity. But jail for those who hand them out…?
We live in interesting times.
Hat tip: TB.
3 comments:
This really should not be surprising. Other sites are reporting this couple as "Singaporean," not American. Even Europe has laws on the books about this sort of thing, and prosecute people for less. I'm not saying it's right, quite the contrary. I'm just saying this isn't all that surprising.
I would be much more outraged if it were an American couple on a tourist trip instead of natives responsible for their own broken legal system.
- Sodra
It speaks volumes that a Christian couple faces similar punishment for criticizing Islam be they in iron-age Afghanistan or modern Singapore.
First they came for the protestors of conscience.
Then they came for Lionheart and Geert Wilders.
Will anyone do more than step back and applaud when they finally come for the un-Islamic bureaucrats who silenced all protest against Muslim colonization?
Zene: "Will anyone do more than step back and applaud when they finally come for the un-Islamic bureaucrats who silenced all protest against Muslim colonization?" Hmmmmm....
And is it now boiling down to this???
Well.... Can we use the book to shine light on this situation? It seems to me that the book speaks well on the issues of our times. However, it's not quite politically correct, even here at times, to point out how the New Testament describes society in future days; when the days become more difficult; when most men's love grows cold because of the increase of wickedness...
Some things are really not that complicated.
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