Amos Yee | |||||||||||
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余澎杉 | |||||||||||
Born | Amos Yee Pang Sang 31 October 1998[6] | ||||||||||
Criminal status | Incarcerated | ||||||||||
Conviction(s) | Singapore:
United States: | ||||||||||
Criminal penalty | Singapore:
United States:
| ||||||||||
Imprisoned at | Danville Correctional Center | ||||||||||
Chinese name | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 余澎杉 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 余澎杉 | ||||||||||
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Amos Yee Pang Sang[a] (born 31 October 1998) is a Singaporean convicted child sex offender and former blogger, former YouTuber, and former child actor.
In late March 2015, shortly after the death of former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Yee uploaded a video to YouTube in which he negatively compared Lee to Jesus Christ. A subsequent 32 police reports resulted in Yee being arrested in Singapore and charged with the intent to wound the religious feelings of Christians, obscenity, and "threatening, abusive or insulting communication". Yee's trial drew significant public interest. The court found him guilty in May 2015, which resulted in a jail sentence of four weeks.[1][2] Yee was then backdated to include 53 days served in remand, freeing Yee immediately following the trial.[7] His imprisonment drew criticism from human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, which considered Yee to be a prisoner of conscience.[8][9] Yee appealed against both the court conviction and sentence.[10]
In August 2016, Yee was arrested again, facing six charges for deliberate intent to wound religious feelings and two charges for failure to turn up for police interviews. Yee was sentenced to 6 weeks' jail and fined $2,000 for wounding religious feelings, under Section 298 of the Penal Code. The presiding judge said that Yee's actions could "generate social unrest" and should not be condoned. Yee began serving his jail term on 13 October 2016. In December 2016, Yee fled to the United States just before his call-up for National Service, immediately seeking political asylum. It was granted in March 2017 by the Chicago immigration court, despite being opposed by the U.S. federal government, which appealed the decision, causing Yee to be held in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the appeal process.[11] Following an immigration appeals court's decision to uphold his bid for asylum, Yee was released in September 2017.[12]
In November 2017, Yee received death threats for supporting paedophilia in videos and blog posts.[13] Afterwards, his YouTube, Twitter and Patreon accounts were shut down. As of December 2018, Yee's WordPress blog and personal Facebook page are shut down. In October 2020, Yee was arrested in Illinois on charges of solicitation in a case involving a 14-year-old, and possession of child pornography;[14][15] he eventually pled guilty to two charges of child grooming and child pornography in exchange for a sentence of six years in prison, which he began serving in December 2021 at the Illinois River Correctional Center.[4][16] He was released on parole on 7 October 2023,[17] but was rearrested for violating parole conditions a month later, and was transferred to the Stateville Correctional Centre.[18] In December 2023, he was transferred again to Danville Correctional Center.[19]
2016 conviction
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