A Singaporean security guard has admitted to the charge of insulting Islam and was sentenced by the Johor Bahru Magistrates’ Court to 14 days imprisonment and a RM7,000 fine.
The 56-year-old accused, Mohamad Anian, was brought by police to the Johor Bahru Magistrates’ Court to be charged on Friday.
Before Magistrate A. Sharminee, the accused pleaded guilty to the offence and was sentenced to 14 days imprisonment and a RM7,000 fine. If he is unable to pay the fine, it will be substituted with a 3-month prison term.
The jail term is to begin from his date of arrest, which is August 18.
According to the charge, the accused was alleged to have deliberately made remarks referring to the Quran; those remarks were likely to hurt the religious feelings of others.
The charge stated that the accused committed the offence at around 5 pm on July 30, while traveling from Tun Razak Road to Jalan Meldrum in Johor Bahru.
The offence is in violation of Section 298 of the Penal Code (deliberately hurting the religious feelings of others through words). If convicted, the maximum sentence is one year’s imprisonment or a fine, or both.
The accused, who was not represented by a lawyer, appealed to the court to impose only a fine, citing his high blood pressure and the fact that he is undergoing divorce proceedings and needs to attend court hearings.
However, prosecutor Ezran requested the court to impose an equivalent punishment, as the accused’s actions touched on the sensitive "3Rs" (religion, race and royalty), adding that a recording of the incident had also gone viral on social media.
According to the case facts, the accused made the remarks while riding in an e-hailing car, after which the 29-year-old driver uploaded a recording of their conversation to social media.
The complainant subsequently lodged a police report on July 31. The accused was finally arrested at around 4:15 pm on Tuesday in the Sultan Iskandar Building area of the Bukit Chagar Inner Ring Road.