Man jailed for posing as someone else to post anti-Islam content
A man so disliked someone he met eight years earlier that he created fake social media accounts, using the other person’s details to post content and YouTube videos that were anti-Islam.
The victim, who was called up by the police on at least two occasions, suffered psychological and professional harm as a result of Chua Wang Cheng’s actions.
On Dec 23, Chua, who is also known as Cai Wangchen, was sentenced to six months’ jail.
He had pleaded guilty to one charge under the Protection from Harassment Act and two charges of sharing content with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of Muslims.
Four other charges were considered during his sentencing.
Prosecutors argued that while he did not produce the videos, he shared them with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of Muslim Facebook users.
District Judge Carol Ling said that despite Chua’s mild autistic traits, the Institute of Mental Health found that at the time of the offences, he had no active mental disorders that contributed to his behaviour.
The 33-year-old met the victim, who cannot be named due to a gag order, in 2011 while serving national service. He found the victim arrogant and sarcastic and bore grudges against him.
In February 2019, Chua created a Facebook account using the victim’s name and photograph and added more than 600 Facebook users as “friends”.
He then made several posts that incited hatred among the different races and religions in Singapore.
After the police received complaints, the victim was called up. He said the Facebook account did not belong to him and made a police report the same day.
When several Facebook users commented that the account was fake, Chua deactivated it in September that year.
But not long later, he created another Facebook account, again using the victim’s name and photograph and posted more content to wound religious feelings.
Chua said it “felt really good to post anti-Muslim” content in a WeChat message he sent to an unknown individual.
In November 2019, he shared two YouTube videos with anti-Islam content and continued to post inflammatory content.
The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis) found that one of the videos was made with the intention of disparaging the religion. It contained derogatory statements about Islam, Prophet Muhammad and the Muslim community at large.
In October 2020, three people made police reports and the victim was called up again.
Police eventually learnt that Chua was behind the postings and arrested him.
When questioned by the police, he admitted to his offences. He said he had deliberately posted content under the victim’s name as he did not like him.
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