SINGAPORE — Socio-political website The Online Citizen’s (TOC) chief editor Terry Xu and three other individuals, including human rights lawyer M Ravi, are being investigated for contempt of court, the police said on Friday (March 13).

In response to TODAY’s queries, a police spokesperson said that the four had published online articles and posts in relation to pending court proceedings — specifically, the 2015 extradition of a Singaporean to Malaysia.

Besides Xu and Mr Ravi, the Singaporean in question — Mr Mohan Rajangam — and a TOC writer, Ms Danisha Hakeem, are also under investigation.

The police said that the publication of the articles and posts poses a “real risk of prejudicing or interfering with the course of such proceedings”.

The Attorney-General had authorised the police to begin investigations into possible contempt of court under Section 3(1)(b) of the Administration of Justice (Protection) Act.

The police said that on Jan 10 this year, Mr Ravi had filed a petition for criminal revision in the courts, supported by an affidavit from Mr Mohan.

TOC then posted on Facebook about it on the same day, containing a link to the article written by Ms Hakeem on the criminal revision. “Both the post and article contained matters stated in Mr Mohan’s affidavit,” the police added.

Subsequently, on Jan 18 and 19, Xu published another Facebook post and article on TOC in response to a media statement issued by the police. Again, the post and article contained information from the affidavit, the police said.

In that media statement, the police had said that the extradition was done under a “longstanding reciprocal agreement” between Singapore and Malaysia.

The Malaysian courts had issued a warrant of arrest against Mr Mohan in 2015 for his suspected links to a murder in Penang.

The police added on Friday: “The repeated publication of the contents of Mr Mohan’s affidavit is a clear breach of Paragraph 29A(3) of the Supreme Court Practice Directions, and suggests a concerted effort by one or more persons to publicly advocate for Mr Mohan’s cause, ahead of the hearing of the criminal revision.”

The Supreme Court Practice Directions prohibit the publication of the contents of any affidavit which has not been produced as evidence or referred to in any open court hearing or in chambers.

XU FACING 3 OTHER COURT CASES

Xu wrote in a Facebook post on Friday morning that police officers came to his home at 7am and confiscated his computers. He said he would be called to the Police Cantonment Complex to help in investigations.

“A point to note, the articles were never Pofma-ed,” he added, referring to the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma).

Xu is currently contesting three separate court cases. Earlier this year, Xu was issued a correction direction under Pofma, over an article on Jan 16 carrying a statement by Malaysian human rights group Lawyers for Liberty.

The group alleged that prison officers were instructed to carry out brutal execution methods at Changi Prison.

His appeal against the correction direction was rejected by the High Court, and he was given leave on Thursday to take the case to the Court of Appeal.

Under Pofma, a correction direction is issued to a person who has communicated a falsehood that affects the public interest.

It requires the recipient to publish a correction notice with the facts, but does not require the post to be taken down or edits made. The order also does not impose criminal sanctions.

Separately, Xu’s trial for criminal defamation — for publishing an article on TOC titled “The Take Away from Seah Kian Ping’s Facebook Post” — began last year in a district court.

The author of the article, Daniel De Costa Augustin, had alleged “corruption at the highest echelons”, when he referred to comments made by Member of Parliament Seah Kian Peng, whose name was misspelt, and Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on a meeting in 2018 between then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and some Singaporean activists.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is also suing him for defamation over a TOC article purportedly containing “false and baseless” allegations, such as the statement that the Prime Minister misled his late father into thinking their Oxley Road property had been gazetted by the Government.