CHICAGO –
Amos Yee, who seeks political asylum in the United States, said Friday (December 30) that he regretted the inflammatory position in Singapore that he landed twice in jail.
The 18-year-old, currently detained in Illinois, told Reuters that he had tasted badly about videos that had insulted Singapore’s late prime minister and various religions.
“I’m telling you it’s hate speech, it’s very rude, it’s not good activism,” Amos said by phone from the McHenry County Adult Correctional Facility in Illinois. “I totally regret making these videos.
The post of Amos, and subsequent trials and convictions in Singapore, elicited a debate on the review of conservative city-states and free speech. His trial was closely watched by rights groups and the United Nations.
Last year, he was accused of harassing and humiliating a religious group’s comments on his founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the comments of Christians soon after Mr. Lee’s death. His sentence is in prison for four weeks.
In September, Amos was sentenced to six weeks in prison, pleading guilty after commenting on Christianity and Islam on the Internet.
Amos arrived at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport on December 16 and told US Customs officials that he was seeking political asylum.
The blogger said he wanted to live in Illinois, and had no plans to return to Singapore, a Southeast Asian city state, forcing military service, Amos said he would not attend.
According to his lawyer Sandra Grossman, Amos should hold his first hearing in front of the judge within two weeks. He said that Amos had never come into contact with the Singapore government.
The adolescent said the US government highly criticized overseas operations, especially UAV operations in the Middle East, saying the country provided the best platform for disseminating political information on anarchist communism, ending private property and wage labor.
“It’s not about going to the best country, it’s about going to the state, the most effectively promoting my anarchic political philosophy of communism,” he said.
