21-Year-Old Man Says He Wants To Throw Egg At Minister, Given Conditional Warning
A netizen who said in a Facebook comment that wanted to throw an egg at Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam has been given a 12-month conditional warning by the the police.
The police have also issued an advisory to a 48-year-old man who replied to the first netizen’s comment, telling him that Mr Shanmugam would be at an upcoming Meet-the-People Session.
Both men are Singaporeans.
Said he wanted to throw egg at Shanmugam in Facebook comment
The 21-year-old man who made the initial comment was previously identified by The Straits Times as Edmund Zhong, who was a full-time national serviceman at the time of the incident.
On his Facebook profile, Zhong describes himself as an “advocator” at Facebook page Singapore Cannabis Awareness. That page calls itself an “advocate for responsible use of cannabis and soft drugs in personal use and in policy”.
In March last year (2019), a police report was lodged against a Facebook comment he left on a Channel NewsAsia (CNA) Facebook post that reported on Australian senator Fraser Anning, who was hit on the head by an egg welded by a 17-year-old boy.
Zhong’s comment: “I wanna do that to K Shanmugam. I swear.”
Zhong subsequently told The Straits Times that the comment was a joke, and he did not intend to carry out the act:
I posted it just as a joke, based on the news on the Australian senator.
Shanmugam laughed off egg comment
Mr Shanmugam, on his part, said in a Facebook post on 27 March, 2019 that he had laughed off Zhong’s comment as “the somewhat exaggerated words of a young man”.
The incident, however, did not end there, as the police still investigated the comment.
Arrested for drug-taking, now in prison
In their statement, the police said that Zhong was arrested for consumption and possession of cannabis and drug-taking utensils in 2017. He was sentenced to 12 months’ detention.
He also committed other drug offences last year, while his Facebook comment was being investigated, and is now in prison, serving a 3-year sentence.
He should have been more careful
While we do think that Zhong’s intention was to make a very ill-advised joke, he should have been more careful.
After all, any threat to the safety of our public officials will be taken very seriously by the police, and he was fortunate to be let off with a warning.
Hopefully, Zhong will know what not to say on Facebook in future.
Featured images adapted from Facebook and Facebook.
