AGC warns pastor over ‘baseless’ tweets linked to CHC trial

SINGAPORE — The Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) yesterday warned City Harvest Church (CHC) pastor Tan Kim Hock over two Twitter posts that it deemed had scandalised the Singapore judiciary.

The AGC’s warning — its first for a contemptuous tweet — was issued for two tweets made after the State Courts’ decision on May 5 that the six CHC leaders facing charges of criminal breach of trust and falsification of accounts have a case to answer.

The first tweet on May 5 — in which Mr Tan questioned the speed at which The Straits Times filed its report — insinuated that the State Courts gave The Straits Times “preferential and privileged access” to information on the City Harvest trial even before the decision was delivered, said the AGC. The second on May 6 suggested that Singapore’s courts are corrupt, including the court hearing the CHC leaders’ case.

The AGC called the insinuations in the two tweets “scurrilous, false and made without any objective basis” and asked the pastor to apologise on Twitter within seven days, starting from yesterday, for publishing the tweets.

It pointed out that based on official court transcripts, on May 5 at 2.54pm, the presiding judge See Kee Oon had already largely given his substantive decision. By 3.10pm, he had ruled that the accused individuals in the trial had a case to answer. The Straits Times reported the information only at 3.15pm.

For the second tweet, which referred to a biblical verse and called the courts corrupt, Mr Tan had not put forward any basis for the insinuations, the AGC said. It warned Mr Tan that publishing such insinuations could amount to contempt of court and that action might be taken against him.

Mr Tan is a founding member of CHC. He started tweeting in 2009 and has more than 2,300 Twitter followers to date. The tweet on May 6 was taken down on May 9. As of last night, both tweets had been removed and the account had been made protected. Mr Tan could not be reached for comment.

Separately, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim commented on a Financial Times piece regarding online comments yesterday.

Mr Lee noted that, while freedom of speech is considered “almost a sacred virtue” in Europe, the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that when a website publishes a controversial story that might attract defamatory or insulting comments, it must anticipate trolling and flaming, and be ready to remove the comments promptly.

“It reflects how societies are still finding the right balance between freedom of speech and responsible online behaviour. I agree with minister Yaacob Ibrahim that freedom of speech does not come free from the need to be responsible for what one says, online or offline,” said Mr Lee. Xue Jianyue