Man Charged Over Threatening IG Stories & Could be Jailed for Up to 5 Years

How far would you go to show your displeasure at a court ruling?

A) Put up a cryptic message on social media hinting at the case.

B) Set up a petition and hope that many, many people sign it.

or C) Outright threaten the judge who made that judgement.

Unfortunately for a 30-year-old man, Muhammad Hanif Mohamed Huzairi, he decided to go with option C.

And now, he’s in trouble for it.

Man Charged Over Threatening IG Stories

This all reportedly started with civil suits brought against Section 377(A) of the Penal Code by three men:

• 43-year-old Johnson Ong Ming
• 42-year-old Bryan Choong
• 61-year-old Roy Tan Seng Kee

The law which criminalises consensual sex between men and anyone prosecuted can be jailed for up to two years.

The trio had launched the suits after an Indian court decided to lift the ban on consensual sex between men back in Sep 2018.

Unfortunately, their civil suits were dismissed by Justice See Kee Oon.

Hanif was apparently angered by Justice See’s decision and decided to issue death threats over the most public platform you can ever find in current times: Instagram Stories.

He allegedly wrote:

• “To the deadass boomer of a judge who dismissed the challenges against 377A, you better f***ing watch out!!”
• “Homophobic judges need to be put down immediately”
• “Gonna begin my work work (sic) on some death curses to be inflicted upon the oppressive judicial (expletive)”
• “Can we please torture the corrupted judges until they f***ing crumble & repeal S377A on the spot!? Pretty please; I’d love to personally torture them to their breaking point”

It wasn’t just Instagram Stories either as he also allegedly wrote a comment on a Pink Dot post, stating that “it’s time to hunt down oppressive judges” and “make them pay the ultimate price”.

He was charged with:

• 2 counts of using threatening words under the Protection from Harassment Act
• 3 counts of communicating an electronic record containing an incitement to violence

Could be Jailed for Up to 5 Years

For the charge of using threatening words, he could be jailed for up to a year, fined up to S$5,000, or both.

For communicating an electronic record containing an incitement to violence, Hanif could be jailed up to 5 years, fined up to S$5,000, or both.

He is currently out on bail and is reportedly planning to plead guilty to the charges on 26 Aug 2020.

Section 377(A) Of The Penal Code

Law Minister Shanmugam has talked about Section 377(A) before.

Then, he had said that it’s not up to them, but to Singapore society itself, to decide if the law will be repealed.

Laws have to keep pace with societal views, and if one day, the Singapore society suddenly wakes up and say, hey, it’s actually okay not to have that law, the law will be amended.

Mr Shanmugam also said that Singapore’s founding father, Mr Lee Kuan Yew himself, had been “sympathetic” and “expressed understanding for those who are gay”.

He also pointed out that while the law is there, there is “generally no prosecutions for private conduct”:

“People openly express themselves as gay, you got the gay parade. Police even approved a licensing for it, no-one gets prosecuted for declaring themselves as gay.”