Local rapper Subhas Nair has been sentenced to six weeks' jail for attempting to promote ill-will between racial and religious groups online.

According to court documents seen by Mothership, Subhas was convicted on four charges pertaining to remarks he had made between July 2019 and March 2021.

He has appealed his sentence and conviction, and maintained his innocence, according to his lawyer Suang Wijaya.

Subhas has also asked for bail, which is pending appeal.

What are the four charges?

2019 rap video with Preetipls

On Jul. 29, 2019, Subhas released a video with his sister, Preetipls, which was a remix of Iggy Azalea's song, "F*ck It Up".

The video included the following lyrics, "Chinese people always out here f*****g it up", and was published on both of their Facebook pages.

Subhas was given a two-year conditional warning for this offence.

The video had created in response to a "brownface" ad by Nets' E-Pay service.

Jul. 25, 2020 remarks responding to video made by two Christians

About a year later, Subhas put up a message on Instagram, responding to a video made by the founder of City Revival Church, Jaime Wong, and a social media influencer, Joanna Theng, in which they linked the gay pride movement to Satan.

Subhas wrote, "If two Malay Muslims made a video promoting Islam and saying the kind of hateful things these Chinese Christians said, ISD would have been at the door before they even hit 'upload'."

Theng and Wong eventually apologised on their own Instagram accounts and took down the video on Jul. 25, 2020, three days after they had first uploaded it on Jul. 22, 2020.

Subhas removed his remarks from Instagram on Nov. 2, 2020.

Oct. 15, 2020 remarks

The next incident pertained to an interview of Chan Jia Xing in the media.

Chan was initially charged with the murder of another man at Orchard Towers in 2019.

This charge was withdrawn and replaced with consorting with a co-accused, who had a foldable Kerambit knife in his possession.

This later charge was then withdrawn and Chan was given a conditional warning, and a discharge not amounting to an acquittal by the State Courts.

Subhas responded to the interview by writing on Instagram that "calling out racism and Chinese privilege" equalled a two-year conditional warning and "smear campaign" by the media, while "actually conspiring to murder an Indian man" equalled "half the sentence" and being asked about the sex of his baby.

These remarks were also removed on Nov. 2, 2020.

March 2021 performance

As for the latest incident, this involved a stage play he had put up on Mar. 11, 2021.

During the performance, Subhas produced a hand-drawn image of his aforementioned Instagram post about the interview with Chan.

Judge: Accusing authorities of being discriminatory just as serious as using racial slurs

In asking for a six-week jail sentence, the prosecution highlighted in their sentencing submissions that Subhas had twisted facts to fit his narrative, resorted to stating falsehoods and used language with a tendency to either insult or ridicule.

In addition, he had also cast aspersions of racial bias on the part of the authorities, the prosecution added.

Meanwhile, Subhas' lawyer, Suang, called for a sentence of 20 days' imprisonment and highlighted in his own sentencing submission that Subhas had not used explicit racial slurs and derogatory references.

Suang also pointed out that Subhas has had a clean criminal record prior to the charges of the present case.

CNA reported that during Subhas' trial, the district judge Shaiffudin Saruwan disagreed with the defence and replied that sowing racial or religious discontent by alleging that there is discrimination by law enforcement in Singapore on the grounds of race or religion is "just as serious" as using racial slurs.

For attempts to promote feelings of ill-will between different groups on grounds of religion or race, an offender can be jailed for up to three years, fined, or both.

Top screenshot via video screengrab