Chia Han Keong, Straits Times assistant sports editor, backtracks on "spitting on (LKY's) grave" comment

A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the Internet.

Belmont Lay | March 26, 2016, 05:28 PM

The assistant sports editor of The Straits Times, Chia Han Keong, on Saturday backtracked on two comments he made about the late Lee Kuan Yew's daughter, Lee Wei Ling, one of which involved "spit(ting)" on the late elder statesman's grave.

How this whole hullabaloo started: Lee Kuan Yew's daughter, Lee Wei Ling, wrote a lengthy but scathing Facebook post saying how her father would have cringed at the Communist-style idol worship of him and his legacy barely one year after his passing.

Her post, which went up on Friday evening, came in response to the arguable overdoing of tributes this past week. Her comment, however, might have rankled some quarters — one of which included Chia, who put up this publicly-visible post on his personal Facebook page as a response:

Chia-Han-Keong-Straits-Times-assistant-sports-editor-facebook

However, this post was subsequently removed, and its screenshot sent to us by a reader.

In its place was another shorter status update, but which has also subsequently been deleted, which reads:

“Yah yah yah, one little chiding by the daughter, and now everyone regrets remembering LKY. Too late, mofos.”

His latest quasi-apologetic, back-tracking post on his personal Facebook page reads:

Earlier today, I wrote a Facebook post expressing my personal views on Dr Lee Wei Ling's post about how Singaporeans...

Posted by Chia Han Keong on Saturday, 26 March 2016

From his latest (undeleted) post, we noticed that he edited it to mention "The Straits Times".

This was his original post before the amendment:

Chia-Han-Keong-Straits-Times-assistant-sports-editor-facebook-02

It is not known if his employer, The Straits Times, is planning to respond to this.

 

Related article:

Lee Wei Ling says her dad “would have cringed at the hero worship just one year after his death”

 

Top photo: composite from screenshot and here.

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