SINGAPORE — A man was on Tuesday (April 30) sentenced to one week’s jail for hurling xenophobic comments at a public bus captain during an incident back in 2020, which the offender live-streamed on Facebook.
Nimal De Silva, 46, a Singaporean, told the court through his lawyer that he is filing an appeal against the sentence and conviction.
De Silva had in January been convicted after trial to one count of using insulting words towards the bus captain, who is a Chinese national.
CASE BACKGROUND
According to court documents, De Silva tried to board an SBS Transit bus 196 opposite Nicoll Highway on Aug 19, 2020, while wearing a gaiter to cover his mouth instead of a proper face mask.
Wearing a facial mask in public was made compulsory in April 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the requirement to wear it on public transport was only stood down in February 2023.
As the bus captain, aged 55 at that time, was unsure if the gaiter was compliant with SBS Transit’s masking policy, he refused to allow De Silva on board, but gestured at the man to cover his mouth properly.
The victim also at the same time contacted the SBS Transit operation centre to seek clarification on the issue.
De Silva pressed the door cock button outside the bus and let himself onto the vehicle.
“Thereafter, the accused began to livestream the incident on Facebook Live, and filmed himself confronting the victim with his handphone,” according to court documents prepared by Deputy Public Prosecutor Cheah Wenjie.
During the confrontation, De Silva referred to the bus captain with some expletives.
The captain, who was not conversant in English, continued to seek verification from SBS Transit operations centre about the neck gaiter and tried to get the staff manning the line to speak to the accused.
However, the bus captain was told that the centre would call the police for assistance.
Meanwhile, a passenger was heard through the video footage offering De Silva a mask to resolve the situation, but the latter declined, saying that he did not want to “give in”.
The recording of the Facebook livestream was still publicly available as of August 2021, and had garnered at least 847,000 views and shared 8,900 times.
While De Silva admitted to uttering some expletives during the kerfuffle, what was disputed between the defence and prosecution was whether or not some specific words that De Silva said could be considered insulting under the Protection from Harassment Act (Poha).
De Silva had said to the driver: “This is the problem when you have China people working in Singapore”.
‘NO REASON’ TO REFER TO NATIONALITY
Delivering her guilty verdict in January, District Judge Lau Qiuyu noted how the prosecution argued that the sentence in dispute was objectively insulting.
This was because it was a xenophobic sentiment targeted at the victim’s nationality, making reference not just to the individual but the entire diaspora of Chinese nationals working in Singapore.
She noted the defence’s argument that the words were not insulting and that De Silva had no intention to insult the bus captain.
“The defence’s position is that the disputed sentence was only conveyed because there was a communication breakdown, and there was no intention for the disputed sentence to be insulting or have any racial or xenophobic element,” said the judge.
Addressing this, however, she found that the sentence showed disrespect for people from China working here by saying that them working here is “a problem”.
“If the issue was simply on the specific incident between Mr De Silva and the victim, and their inability to communicate at the time Mr De Silva boarded the bus, there would be no reason to refer to ‘China people working in Singapore’ as a whole,” said District Judge Lau.
“Indeed, nationality and comprehension of languages (and hence the ability to communicate) are two separate matters.”
On Tuesday, District Judge Lau said that in deciding the appropriate sentence, the actual and potential harm to both the victim and the wider community must be considered.
The fact that the entire exchange where the victim had endured insulting words from De Silva was livestreamed and shared online “exacerbated” the harm that the victim experienced, with a “large audience” watching him being insulted by the offender.
There was also actual harm to the wider public due to the disruption of the public bus service arising from the incident.
Further, the sharing of the insulting words online via the livestreaming and uploading of the video gave rise to potential public disquiet, the judge added.
De Silva was offered and accepted S$15,000 bail while his case is pending appeal.
For communicating insulting words under Poha, a person can be jailed for up to 12 months, handed a fine of up to S$5,000, or both.
