Curtailing Free Expression, Opinion and Information Online in Southeast Asia Cases of Alex Au, Eugene Thuraisingam and Li Shengwu In March 2015, blogger Alex Au Wai Pang was fined S$8,000 (approx. USD 5,900) for contempt of court, following a post he made on his sociopolitical blog that raised questions about Singapore’s courts’ handling of petitions challenging section 377A of the Penal Code.361 Au had previously written on section 377A, which criminalizes sex between men, and the rights of LGBTI individuals in Singapore. In August 2017, lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam was fined S$6,000 (approx. USD 4,423) after he posted a poem about the death penalty in Singapore on Facebook in May 2017. He had reportedly posted the poem just before his client was hung for drug trafficking. The fine was imposed after Thuraisingam had deleted the post and posted a public apology after Singapore’s Law Society notified him that his post could amount to contempt of court.362 In October 2017, committal papers were served on academic Li Shengwu, starting contempt of court proceedings for a Facebook post he made in July 2017, which alleged that “the Singapore government is very litigious and has a pliant court system. This constrains what the international media can usually report.”363 The post had been set on a “Friends Only” privacy setting. 361 Mong Palatino, ‘Singapore Blogger Who Criticized Court Case of Anti-Gay Sex Law Fined for ‘Scandalizing the Judiciary’’, Global Voices, 8 March 2015, Available at: https://advox.globalvoices. org/2015/03/08/singapore-blogger-who-criticized-court-case-of-anti-gay-sex-law-fined-forscandalizing-the-judiciary/; This case followed precedent set by the Shadrake case where journalist Alan Shadrake was sentenced to six weeks in prison and fined S$20,000 for contempt of court, following the release of his book on the criminal justice system in Singapore, as charges of criminal defamation were also brought against him. 362 Thuraisingam also faced disciplinary proceedings before the Council of the Law Society, following which he was fined S$5,000 (approx. USD 3,664). See Selina Lum, ‘Lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam fined $6,000 for contempt of court over Facebook post on death penalty’, Straits Times, 7 August 2017, Available at: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/lawyer-fined-6000-forcontempt-of-court-over-facebook-post-on-death-penalty 363 Selina Lum, ‘Papers for contempt properly served on Li Shengwu in the US: Court of Appeal’, Straits Times, 1 April 2019, Available at: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/papers-forcontempt-properly-served-on-li-shengwu-in-the-us-court-of-appeal 99