Local cartoonist arrested under Sedition Act.

Recently, on top of all the warnings sent to various Facebook sites, a local internet political cartoonist was arrested on suspicion of sedition under the Sedition Act. Although he has not been charged yet, there have been a couple of reports that you can read here and here, and if you want you can Google the original report by Yahoo Singapore. It seems that the news has spread a little further regionally by this time, too, so you might come across a couple more other articles on his case as well.

This cartoonist fellow is on bail and to return to the police on the 30th, so I guess we'll get to know more then.

For reference, here's a quick look at the Sedition Act and the definition of sedition in Singapore law:

It ought to be noted, like the USG's definition of "terror" and "terrorist" and the Anglosphere's definition of "hate speech", that this definition is quite nebulous and could conceivably be stretched to encompass anything and everything under the sun.

Since being alerted of this fellow's existence, I've read a couple of his comics and while I think that his political commentary is populist and shallow (as well as being mostly leftist stances on topics well-addressed by reactionaries), he still has the right to bring political topics into discussion, and we all have the right to laud or mock him for our own reasons. Do I whine about the misplaced priorities of my fellow countrymen? Sure, I do, but while I might feel disgusted with their whining I don't go around trying to stop them (which would be an exercise in futility anyways). Reality will not be denied, and it's going to hand them a fistful into the faces really soon, so getting worked up about it is for my own masochistic tendencies, heh.

As I've pointed out before, I'm wary of benevolent dictatorships because it's so easy to take out the benevolent part and start turning the gears in reverse. Monarchy may have its problems, but the presence of a countervailing force in the form of an aristocracy that isn't completely comprised of yes-men is better than an absolute monarchy in my opinion.

It's also another reason why I'd like to keep my head under water for a little while longer, and have quite a bit of respect for those people who blog or make videos under their actual names and don't hide behind pseudonyms.