Divided views over police checks on blogger

Religious leaders and social observers interviewed believe the law has a role to play in teaching people about the need to balance the right to free expression with the need to respect another's faith.

'The right to free speech stops when it begins to hurt the religious sensitivities of others,' said Father John-Paul Tan, parish priest of the Church of St Mary of the Angels in Bukit Batok.

'That's when sometimes the law needs to come in to educate people.'...

One compared Char's action to a newspaper reproducing seditious remarks or offensive cartoons, noting that the law treats such an action as seriously as creating the content.

Law professor Thio Li-Ann from the National University of Singapore said that in investigating the matter, the Government was being even-handed and recognising respect for religious faiths as a key principle here.

She added: 'Given that 80 per cent of Singaporeans subscribe to some kind of religious faith, it is not conducive to denigrate any faith.'

Supporting the use of law, Anglican Bishop John Chew noted that disrespect of any religion or religious figure could result in ill will...

Agreeing, chairman of the Centre for Contemporary Islamic Studies Ridzuan Wu called for society to take a consistent position when any religious figure is mocked.

'Muslims feel it is offensive to deride the Prophet, and it is offensive to do so to Jesus Christ and other religious figures,' he said...

There were several netizens who also backed tough action. One was a Muslim American management lecturer based here, known online as 'JD'.

Said the 44-year-old: 'I support Singapore's use of the Sedition Act. People shouldn't have to put up with derogatory comments and cartoons that blaspheme their faiths.'

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I guess it's time to:

- Ban the Da Vinci Code
- Unban the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Unification Church
- Stop condemning suicide bombers and religious extremists because we can't denigrate their faith
- Stop Christians condemning "false" Christians since it denigrates their faiths
- Report pastors/priests who preach at funerals and say non-Christians are fools, dommed and condemned to burn in hell
- Report people who say that "all gods are the same"
- Ban crucifixes worn by non-Christians
- Ban the swear word "Christ" or similar derivations, since this is taking the name of god in vain and offensive to Christians
- Ban books exposing Scientology
- Start reporting your neighbors and enemies for Sedition, making police reports at the drop of a hat (or for the slightest non-religious grudge) since if you "must [feel] very strongly about the issue", the police will "investigate"
- cut ties with Israel since this offends some Muslims
- Ban the teaching of Evolution in schools since it offends fundamentalist Christians
- Since evolution is termed as a 'Faith', even religion by its opponents, have Evolutionists cry 'Sedition!' at attempts to demonise their credo
- Take after the UK, where Christians were going to tape Muslim sermons and Muslims Christian ones so they could look for material in them to report each other
- Emigrate

Remember kids, Jesus was crucified for offending the Jewish religion!

I saw a movie poster in London which read: "Muhammad - the Last Prophet". MUIS would no doubt condemn this, since it implies that all other prophets who came after him are false, and this denigrates other people's faiths.

Consistency is the name of the game!