Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening High Court Judge on Instagram for Dismissing Challenges to Section 377A

While there are no doubt antiquated laws that need to be changed, there are certain legal avenues you have to go through to do so.

And if the authorities in Singapore decide that these laws should not be changed, there’s not much you can do except launch an appeal.

One man, however, took a rather unique approach: threatening to torture the judges who made those decisions.

Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening High Court Judge on Instagram for Dismissing Challenges to Section 377A

On 30 March last year, three constitutional challenges were made to Section 377A – the law criminalising consensual sex between men.

Following an Indian court’s decision to lift a ban on consensual gay sex in September 2018, three gay men here filed civil suits, challenging the constitutionality of Section 377A.

To their dismay, the High Court dismissed all three challenges.

This, as you can imagine, was upsetting for many residents in the country. One particularly irate individual, Muhammad Hanif Mohamed Huzairi, was a little too aggressive in his protestations, however.

Hanif was following the legal challenges very closely, especially that of Johnson Ong Ming, a disc jockey.

When Ong’s case was dismissed, Hanif grew “very upset and disappointed”, and felt that the judges had to be replaced.

Commenting on a post by Pink Dot SG in which the organisation expressed its disappointment over the rulings, Hanif said: “Time to hunt down the oppressive judges, who basically maintained the legislation of discrimination against us, and make them pay the ultimate price.”

But that wasn’t all. Hanif also posted four Instagram Stories on 30 March for his 267 followers, where he made these comments:

• “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”

Unless you’re starring in a crime thriller, threatening to torture someone, especially a High Court judge, will very rarely go unpunished.

Around a year after making these comments, the 31-year-old pleaded guilty to the following charges:

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

Two other similar charges will be taken into consideration for sentencing on 22 April.

For the first charge, Hanif is facing up to five years in jail, a fine, or both.

And for using threatening words towards a public servant, he could be jailed for up to a year, fined up to S$5,000, or both.

We may not always agree with the authorities’ decisions, but making threats against them isn’t going to further your cause. Instead, it’ll land you in a whole heap of trouble.

Feature Image: mentatdgt/ Shutterstock.com