Indian-origin rapper starts jail term for promoting ill will in Singapore

Indian-origin Rapper Subhas Nair on Wednesday began his six-week jail term for attempting to promote ill will among racial and religious groups through online posts in multi-ethnic Singapore.

The 32-year-old Singaporean, whose full name is Subhas Govin Prabhakar Nair, appealed against his conviction and sentence before Justice Hoo Sheau Peng over two days starting last year.

The High Court had dismissed his appeals, the Channel News Asia reported.

For attempting to promote feelings of ill will between racial or religious groups, Nair could have been jailed up to three years, fined or both.

In a brief oral decision, Justice Hoo said she agreed with the lower court’s decision on conviction and sentence, adding that the six-week jail term was “not disproportionate or crushing”.

Nair was found guilty of four charges by a district court in 2023 after a trial. The charges were over racially-charged statements he made between July 2019 and March 2021.

They relate to a YouTube video where he and his sister, Preeti Nair, performed a song having racist lyrics.

While Nair was given a two-year conditional warning by the police for the video, he reoffended by posting racial comments on social media.

Nair wrote that “calling out racism and Chinese privilege” equalled a two-year conditional warning and “smear campaign in the media”, while “actually conspiring to murder an Indian man” equalled half the sentence and a question of “you’re having a baby soon right? Boy or girl” from the media.

Nair later performed a stage play where he displayed a hand-drawn replica of the comments related to Chan Jia Xing.

A District Judge eventually sentenced Nair to the prosecution’s proposed jail term of six weeks in September 2023, resulting in the present appeal.