SINGAPORE ( The Straits Times/ANN): A doctor who posted anti-Islam content on his personal Facebook page in 2021, and left the country in 2022 while he was under investigation, has been given a maximum fine of S$ 10, 000 ( RM33, 000 ).
On May 19, Kho Kwang Po, 85, pleaded guilty to one count of performing an action that wounded the spiritual feelings of others.
Kho, a non-practising physician, will have to devote two weeks behind bars if he fails to pay the number. His title could not be found on the Singapore Medical Council’s databases of registered medical practitioners when The Islands Times searched it on May 19.
Court records did not disclose what spurred the Singaporean to undertake the crime, which Deputy Public Prosecutor Sean Teh said was done with the “deliberate goal of wounding the cultural thoughts of Muslims in general”.
Kho was the only man who had entry to the Twitter account, DPP Teh added.
On April 21, 2021, Kho made the incriminating article applicable for the public to view, which comprised pictures of notes that he had before made on Instagram in 2016.
About two months later, in June 2021, a man lodged a police statement that” Kho Kwang Po has been explicitly making racist comments on his Instagram. The articles are extremely disrespectful towards Islam”.
Later that month, another man alerted the authorities that Kho had been posting subversive materials “denigrating Islam” on Twitter for several years.
Kho left Singapore for an unknown area in January 2022 and returned in October 2024, the police had said before. He was charged in jury on Feb 26, 2025.
For performing an action that wounds the religious sentiments of some, an offender can be jailed for up to three years, fined or both.
On May 19, the DPP urged the judge to great Kho the optimum$ 10, 000 great without a prison sentence, saying:” We accept that the accused’s prejudiced messages have not gained significant momentum.
” We have even considered the accused’s advanced years and his petition of grief.”
Military doctors Kenneth Au-Yong and Josiah Tan pleaded for their customer to be given a great of$ 6, 000, saying that Kho is really sorry for what he had done and is unlikely to repeat the crime.
Before handing down the phrase, District Judge Eddy Tham said Kho, as a physician, may include known better than to undertake such an infraction.
The prosecutor also noted that Kho had been fixated on what he read on the internet, and had accepted advertising without important exam. – The Strait Times/ANN