TRS Editors Ai Takagi and Robin Yang Charged with Sedition Act

On 4 February 2015, www.therealsingapore.com (TRS) published an article they claimed was from a contributor that reported that during the Thaipusam festivities, an incident was sparked off by a Filipino complaining to police about noise.

Subsequently, the named contributor clarified on another site that the allegations that a Filipino family was involved were untrue. A police report was made and investigations were carried out.

Ai Takagi and Robin Yang Kai Heng were then identified to be the people jointly responsible for the creation, development and maintenance of content on TRS. As a result of their deliberate attempt to create animosity between Singaporeans and Filipinos and Indians, the two have been charged under the Sedition Act.

Further investigations by the Police revealed that TRS had also routinely published various other articles that have the tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of the population of Singapore.

In the course of investigations, Police identified that the motive for Takagi and Robin's actions was purely monetary. As TRS works on a traffic revenue advertising model, the higher the traffic, the higher their earnings. Takagi and Robin thus deliberately added xenophobic falsehoods, to sensationalize their articles, to make money. In this instance, they added the reference to Pinoy family to the contributor's article. Takagi and Yang Kai Heng do this regularly (i.e. fanning xenophobia), for the sole purpose of making money at the expense of Singaporeans.

As Takagi and Robin Yang's seditious remarks were made at the expense of Singapore’s collective social harmony, the Police had no choice but to take action. In fact, investigations showed that they were both overseas when they committed some of the offences and had taken steps to settle down in Australia. They thus had no stake in Singapore and were not concerned about the implications of their greed to Singaporeans.

With regards to claims that TRS is a news website and should thus be allowed to report "the news", Singaporeans must be clear that TRS is not a news website. TRS is a social website that re-angles mainstream media news with its own slant for the authors’ self-interest, ie. money. Legitimate news websites adhere to a code of conduct to be objective and factual, which was clearly lacking in TRS' case.

Singaporeans need to stand firm in our efforts to stop foreigners (with no stake or interest in Singapore) from destroying our future.