Filipino Nurse Jailed in Singapore for Derogatory Facebook Post

Ello Ed Munsell Bello, a Filipino nurse who previously worked at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital, was sentenced to a total of four months in prison for a derogatory post on his Facebook account.

Bello was arrested earlier in April for the Facebook post above dated in January. The arrest was followed by an investigation in which Bello denied being guilty of the accusation and stated that his Facebook account was hacked and he was not the one who posted the insults on social media.

Later on, however, he admitted to the crime and was sentenced to 3 months in prison for one count of sedition under Singapore’s Sedition Act and two charges of providing false information to the investigators in three different occasions.

In a statement, State Courts Judge Siva Shanmugam said that “the accused’s provocative conduct, if left unchecked, could possibly result in discrimination against the innocent and law-abiding minority Filipino residents in Singapore.”

Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Charles Jose agrees with the courts’ decision stating that “Bello’s penalty was appropriate for the gravity of charges.”

[Source]