A Singapore court on Monday released sixteen-year-old video blogger Amos Yee [YouTube profile], who had been jailed after posting images and video insulting the country’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew [BBC backgrounder]. The court released Yee after sentencing him [Straits Times report] to four weeks in prison, time he had already served awaiting the sentence. Yee was found guilty [Straits Times report] of obscenity [Penal Code Article 292(a)(1)] and deliberately insulting a religious or racial group [Penal Code Article 298] in May. Human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website], have criticized Yee’s arrest and called for him to be exonerated [press release], saying the country’s laws violate fundamental rights of expression.

Singapore has a history of prosecuting those critical of the government. In March, the Supreme Court of Singapore fined blogger Alex Au [JURIST report] for comments he made about an on-going challenge to the country’s anti-homosexuality laws. In January, another court ordered blogger Roy Ngerng [JURIST report] to pay Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for legal fees incurred pursuing a defamation case against Ngerng. In 2008, a Singapore court sentenced US blogger and attorney Gopalan Nair [JURIST report] to three months in jail for insulting a judge.