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A 21-YEAR-OLD accounts assistant is being investigated for allegedly flouting the Sedition Act by publishing pictures on his blog that were thought to depict Jesus Christ in an offensive manner.
The blogger, using the online moniker Char, had found the cartoons on the Internet and began posting them in January.
He told The Straits Times last week that he was called in by the police for questioning in March after they received a complaint.
On Tuesday, the police confirmed they were investigating the matter but declined to give details as "investigations are still ongoing."
News of the investigation was announced online by Char himself last week, when he sent an e-mail to a mailing list of more than 300 young Singaporeans. He told them of his experience and how it came about, and had removed the cartoons from his blog after he was questioned.
When contacted, Char asked that he not be identified for he feared he might lose his job, which he wanted to keep before entering a local university in August.
Describing himself as a freethinker, he said he had posted a cartoon that depicted Jesus as a zombie biting a boy's head in January. The following month, he received an online message asking him to remove the image.
Char did not reply to the message but chose to irk the person instead. He searched the Internet for more pictures depicting Jesus and published three of them on his blog.
Looking back, he said he felt he had made an "unwise" move.
In its statement on Tuesday, the police also advised the public "that it is a serious offence for any person to distribute or reproduce any seditious publication which may cause feelings of ill will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore." Offenders can be jailed up to three years or fined a maximum of S$5,000 (RM11,514) or both.
