79 Facts About Amos Yee

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.

Amos Yee was then backdated to include 53 days served in remand, freeing Amos Yee immediately following the trial.

Amos Yee's imprisonment drew criticism from human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, which considered Yee to be a prisoner of conscience.

Amos Yee was sentenced to 6 weeks' jail and fined $2,000 for wounding religious feelings, under Section 298 of the Penal Code.

Amos Yee began serving his jail term on 13 October 2016.

In December 2016, Amos Yee fled to the United States just before his call-up for National Service, immediately seeking political asylum.

In November 2017, Amos Yee received death threats for supporting paedophilia in videos and blog posts.

In October 2020, Amos Yee was arrested in Illinois on charges of solicitation in a case involving a 14-year-old, and possession of child pornography; 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.

Amos Yee was released on parole on 7 October 2023, but was rearrested for violating parole conditions a month later, and was transferred to the Stateville Correctional Centre.

Amos Yee Pang Sang was born on 31 October 1998, in Singapore.

Amos Yee studied at Pei Chun Public School, where he took his Primary School Leaving Examination, and then attended Zhonghua Secondary School.

Amos Yee, who was raised Catholic, and began attending Mass independently of his family, considered himself a practicing Catholic, but in 2013 he was reportedly "kicked out" of service as an altar boy after swearing during a meeting.

In March 2011, Amos Yee won awards for Best Short Film and Best Actor at The New Paper First Film Fest for his film Jan The New Paper described Amos Yee as having taken on four different acting roles in his own film, which was described as a "twisted dark comedy" in which a boy tries to persuade his three friends to help a cancer-stricken girl.

Amos Yee played the role of a younger brother of a lead actor's character, and was allowed by Neo to write his own dialogue, although Amos Yee only had three scenes in the movie.

Nathan Heller of The New Yorker noted in 2015 that Amos Yee had been publishing homemade videos, which were aimed at both the Singaporean youth and a more international audience.

Amos Yee claimed that neither Lee's nor Jesus's legacy will last as "more and more people find out that they are full of bull".

Amos Yee went on to describe Lee's followers as "completely delusional and ignorant", while accusing Christians of a similar lack of knowledge of the Bible's teachings.

Lastly, Amos Yee issued a challenge to Lee's son, Lee Hsien Loong, stating that if the younger Lee, the then Prime Minister, wished to sue him, Amos Yee would "oblige to dance with him".

Amos Yee looked up the Sedition Act, and told his mother he was making a video criticising Lee without going into detail about the video's content.

Amos Yee advised him against uploading it but he went ahead anyway.

Amos Yee said that his ideas were influenced by meet-ups with members from the Singapore Democratic Party.

Amos Yee was introduced to Roy Ngerng's blog by an SDP member, and Amos Yee said he was convinced by what Ngerng had published.

Singaporean magazine Today published a piece by Edwin Teong, who felt that Amos Yee's video was one of several cases that represent poor decisions made by Singaporean youths.

The Straits Times reported that Amos Yee's mother had filed a police report against her son because she was unable to control his behaviour.

BBC News reported that Amos Yee was among several people who took to the internet to criticise Lee, including human rights activists and a poet, but he was the only one who has been arrested.

The third charge was that Amos Yee had violated Section 292 of the Penal Code, by uploading an obscene image of Lee and Thatcher on 28 March 2015.

Amos Yee was initially released on bail set at 20,000 Singapore dollars on 31 March 2015 on the condition that he not comment or distribute any content online while the case was still ongoing.

Today reported that this was because Amos refused to continue the sessions at IMH, but this was contradicted by former bailor Vincent Law, who later told The Online Citizen that Yee could not attend the third IMH session because it had clashed with the day of his bail review hearing, and that Yee had unsuccessfully asked the institute to bring the session forward.

On 14 April, Amos Yee flouted his initial bail conditions by asking for public donations to fund his legal fees on both on his blog and Facebook page; the blog post linked to his controversial 2015 video and image.

Amos Yee was taken into remand in Changi Prison from 17 to 21 April 2015 because no one in that time period posted bail, despite the bail amount only needing to be pledged instead of being physically deposited.

Amos Yee refused to take down the two blog posts despite being asked to by the District Judge Kessler Soh, as he felt that taking down the posts in question was tantamount to an admission of guilt.

Amos Yee was again taken into remand because of a lack of anyone posting bail.

On 30 April 2015, while en route to the state courts for a pre-trial conference, Amos Yee was slapped in the face by Neo Gim Huah, who ran away after challenging Amos Yee to sue him.

Amos Yee said that he closely monitored the case and had the intention to confront and slap Yee before his first two court appearances as he felt that Yee's actions had put Singapore in a negative light.

Neo's attack on Yee was condemned by Minister for Law K Shanmugam and human rights non-governmental organisation Maruah as ill-befitting of a civilised society.

In court documents, Amos Yee explained that his intention in critiquing both Christianity and Lee Kuan Yew was to open discussions on what he saw as "problems" with the faith and Singapore.

Amos Yee said that he was aware his critique would lead some people to take offence, but argued that this promoted discussion could lead to positive change taking place in future.

Amongst the court documents was the revelation that Amos Yee knew that the contents of his blogs and videos would be offensive, but went ahead with posting them.

Amos Yee's bail was reduced to $10,000, and his parents paid the bail.

Amos Yee was required to remove the offensive YouTube video and the blog post in question; it is not an offence for other people to re-post Amos Yee's videos or blog post.

The prosecution requested that Amos Yee be given counseling and probation.

On 13 May 2015, a day after being released, Amos Yee took to Facebook alleging that he had been molested by his ex-bailor Law, who denied the allegation.

Amos Yee invited the media to "catch" him at Pasir Panjang MRT station, but he did not show up.

Amos Yee asked Law to give him "about 3 days" to finish preparing it, as he was a "slow writer".

Amos Yee stated that "it was stupid of people to believe that he would actually issue a sincere apology", linking this to religion.

Amos Yee then proceeded to call Law a molester, a "mentally unsound person" and a hypocrite.

Amos Yee described his interactions with Law and explained how he plotted to publicly humiliate Law while he was in remand prison.

On 27 May 2015, Amos Yee was called back to court for an urgent hearing as he refused to meet with his assigned probation officer.

The prosecution has argued that Amos Yee's re-uploading of the image and video pertaining to his charges should be taken into account as an indication of his conduct and character.

One post lamented the lack of exposure to sunshine, while others criticise the attitudes of police officers, such as towards Amos Yee's opting for vegetarian meals.

On 23 June 2015, district judge Kaur ordered that Amos Yee be remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for two weeks in response to a report by Dr Munidasa Winslow who said that Amos Yee may have autism.

Amos Yee's sentence was met with criticism from the United Nations Human Rights Office which called for the immediate release of Amos Yee in line with its commitment under the UN Convention on the Rights of Child.

On 5 July 2015, the night before Amos Yee's next hearing was scheduled to be held, Amos Yee was admitted to the Accident and Emergency department at Changi General Hospital for low blood glucose levels.

Amos Yee was addressed directly by the judge Kaur who said that she hopes that Yee would "rethink long and hard his decision not to continue with formal education," before acknowledging that there are few dropout success stories.

Amos Yee appeared pale and gaunt, wore a frown on his face and kept his head bowed most of the time.

Amos Yee questioned the motive of the sentence, asking whether or not it was justified.

Student activist group Scholarism, which took part in the protest, published a post asserting that the actions taken against Amos Yee reflected the lack of freedom of speech within Singaporean society.

Amos Yee filed an appeal against the conviction and sentence, ahead of 20 July 2015 deadline for making an appeal.

Amos Yee's lawyer, Dodwell, questioned whether this was a crime or not, but was willing to determine it in the high court.

Amos Yee's mother said that she wanted to know for sure that what he did was not criminally wrong.

On 13 May 2016, it was reported in the Straits Times that Amos Yee was arrested two days prior for allegedly posting content designed to hurt religious feelings, and for failing to report to a police station as required by the terms of his probation.

On 17 August 2016, Amos Yee stood trial over six charges for deliberate intent to wound religious feelings and two charges for failure to turn up for police interviews.

On 29 September 2016, Amos Yee was sentenced to 6 weeks' jail and fined $2000 for wounding religious feelings.

The presiding judge, Ong Hian Sun, said that Amos Yee posted a photograph and two videos online, which were said to have insulting words and gestures intended to hurt the feelings of Christians and Muslims.

Amos Yee began serving his jail term on 13 October 2016.

On 16 December 2016, Amos Yee fled to the United States where he was detained at Chicago's O'Hare Airport after announcing his intention to seek political asylum.

Amos Yee was transferred to Dodge County Detention Facility in Wisconsin.

Amos Yee was due to serve his national service upon reaching 18 years old in October 2016.

Amos Yee was released from a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in downtown Chicago on 26 September 2017 following an immigration appeals court's decision to uphold his bid for asylum.

Amos Yee told reporters after his release that he can now criticise the Singaporean government without fear of imprisonment, and that while he planned to make more critical videos on the topic, he might broaden his work to US politics since he is in the country.

Amos Yee had been previously invited to give a speech at Harvard College by The Open Campus Initiative, a student club, but his invitation was rescinded 24 hours before the event.

Out of money, Amos Yee asked for donations from his followers via Facebook, stating he would rather borrow than take a job he did not like.

Amos Yee stated he was going to rebrand himself under the name "Polocle".

In October 2020, Amos Yee was arrested in Illinois on state charges of solicitation and possession of child pornography, after he allegedly exchanged nude photos and "thousands" of messages with a 14-year-old girl from Texas via WhatsApp while he was living in Chicago from 1 February 2019 to 30 June 2019.

Amos Yee's bail was set at US$1 million and he was banned from internet usage while awaiting trial.

Two years after his sentencing, Amos Yee was released on parole on 7 October 2023.

On 23 October 2023, Amos Yee made a blog post reiterating his support of paedophilia and detailing his prison life, his life under parole, and his future plans to return to Singapore.

On 5 November 2023, Amos Yee made a second blog post where he declared his intention to popularize defending paedophiles and illegal public protests.

On 8 November 2023, it was reported that Amos Yee had been re-arrested for violating parole conditions, and had been transferred to the maximum security Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois.