Singapore, like most countries in Asia, is not known for any pattern of gay-bashing. It thus caused a stir when the 23 November 2007 death of Suhaimi Sulong came to light. Six young men went on trial last month over the case.
This, even considering that Suhaimi had earlier approached Ho Ching Boon, 17, and Lai Chee Kuen, 17, "making lewd comments and offering sexual services", according to the Straits Times. Suhaimi probably did not know that Ho and Lai were friends of Ahmad.
The very fact that the six were put on trial showed that the prosecution did not think that killing Ahmad was proportionate. However, what caught many people's eyes, and not only people from the gay community because I received a number of emails from straight friends drawing my attention to the case, was the fact that the charges had been downgraded from manslaughter to causing grievous hurt even before the trial began.
"Bias!" some people said. Well, maybe, or maybe not. It's worth taking a closer look at the details.
The difference between manslaughter and causing grievous hurt
Manslaughter - or "culpable homicide not amounting to murder" in Singapore's legalese - has two grades:
(a) If the act had been done "with the intention of causing death, or of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death," the sentence would be up to life imprisonment, with a fine and caning.
(b) If the act had been done "with the knowledge that it is likely to cause death, but without any intention to cause death," then the maximum sentence is 10 years, with fine and caning.
The reduced charge - voluntarily causing grievous hurt - also carries a maximum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment, with fine and caning. You could therefore say that the prosecutor did not give very much away.
What actually happened that early morning outside the Brown Sugar Pub in Orchard Towers? From various press reports, Ho and Lai walked away when Suhaimi propositioned them. But when Suhaimi propositioned and exposed himself to Ahmad in the toilet, Ahmad summoned his friends to chase and beat the older man. They punched and kicked him in the head repeatedly, stopping only when a taxi-driver intervened.
While there is no evidence that the group intended to kill Suhaimi, when you kick someone in the head, won't the average person know that it can cause death? Given that reasonable foreknowledge, wasn't the original charge - manslaughter (b) - correct? Why was the prosecutor persuaded to reduce the charge? Did he come to the view that Suhaimi's initial acts were provocative enough to lessen the responsibility of the six for the outcome? We don't know, because none of the press reports addressed this question.
Gay people are very sensitive to this possibility. There have been many cases in the past, in other countries, where courts have agreed with defence counsels that when one man makes a suggestive approach to another, the emotional response is understandably severe, and this, to a large extent, excuses the violent reaction that have often resulted in the death of the homosexual victim. This is known as the "homosexual panic defence".
Some Singaporeans thought that similar considerations swayed the prosecutor in this case. I don't think we know enough to come to that conclusion. In any case, as pointed out above, the maximum penalties are the same.
Yet it can be argued that especially because the penalties are the same, the act of reducing the charge sends the wrong signal. It makes the attack on Suhaimi a little less heinous than it actually was, calling it "hurt" rather than "manslaughter". This, I think, is a valid criticism.
The sentences
All six accused pleaded guilty when they appeared in court in early October. Sentencing took place a few weeks later.
For reasons not clear from press reports, the judge concluded that of the six persons confronting Suhaimi, three persons were less responsible than the others. They were sent to a reformative training centre, where they would be "confined for between 18 months and three years and put through a tough regimen of foot drills, counselling, education and vocational training," said the Straits Times.
The two 17-year-olds, Ho and Lai, were among them. So was Muhammad Ridhwan, 20. Perhaps their being under 21 had something to do with the judge's decision, but it should also be noted that Ahmad was also 20, and he was not included in this batch.
A good question would be what good reformative training might do. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on discipline ("foot drills") and obeying orders. But the problem with homophobia is that in the minds of gay-bashers, they are not breaking orders. If anything, they feel justified in their violence, because they see themselves as enforcers of a moral code. They see their victim as the one breaking rules. Hence, teaching teenagers to obey rules in effect does nothing to address the roots of homophobic violence.
Hopefully, the counselling component of reformative training would address this problem, but I honestly doubt it, for two reasons: firstly, the state does even not even see anti-gay prejudice as a problem, and secondly, due to the relative rarity of such cases, there is probably no program in the prison service touching on this subject. I am not optimistic that the months spent by these three youths in reformative training will do any good.
As for the other three, two were sentenced to four years' jail and six strokes of the cane. Ahmad, whom the judge said played a "key role", was given 4 ½ years' jail and eight strokes of the cane.
Is that appropriate? I'd say, more or less. The sentences were about half the maximum allowed by law. Some may bay for more blood or longer jail terms. After all, a man died, they might say. But personally, I am wary of making this place an even more punitive society than we already are.
Alex Au has been a gay activist for over 10 years and is the co-founder of gay advocacy group People Like Us. He is also the author of the well-known Yawning Bread web site.