Amos Yee
Amos Yee Pang Sang is a Singaporean convicted sex offender, Youtuber, blogger, and former child actor.
In 2012, inspired by atheism, Yee started to upload videos to YouTube that criticised religion, particularly Islam and Christianity. His videos were aimed at both Singaporean and international youth. In 2015, Yee gained national and international attention after he uploaded a video that labelled Lee Kuan Yew, the dead former Prime Minister of Singapore, a dictator. After 32 police reports, he was arrested by the Singapore Police Force and charged for both obscenity and violations of provisions under the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act. His trial and arrest garnered condemnation by international organisations like Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, which highlighted restrictions on freedom of expression in Singapore.
In 2016, Yee fled to the United States, where he was granted political asylum by the Department of Homeland Security. In 2020, he was arrested by the Marshals Service at his apartment in Chicago for solicitation, possession of child pornography, and child grooming. He was sentenced to six years in prison. Yee was released on parole on 7 October 2023, but was rearrested for violating his parole conditions. On 21 November 2025, he was released under early parole.
Early life
Amos Yee Pang Sang was born on 31 October 1998 in Singapore to mathematics teacher Mary Toh Ai Buay and computer engineer Alphonsus Yee. He studied at Pei Chun Public School and Zhonghua Secondary School.Yee was raised Catholic and began attending Mass independently of his family during his first year in secondary school; however, his service as an altar boy was terminated in 2013 after he used profanity during a meeting. After questioning his confirmation to a priest and watching YouTube channels such as The Amazing Atheist, he renounced his faith.
Acting career
During 2011 and 2012, Yee was a child actor. In March 2011, his film Jan won the Best Short Film and Best Actor awards at The New Paper First Film Fest. The paper described the film as a "twisted dark comedy" about a girl with cancer. Yee, 13 at the time, made the film in his bedroom and portrayed the four characters. The FFF awarded Yee a video camera and video editing software.Following the success of Jan, FFF chief judge Jack Neo offered Yee an internship and an audition for We Not Naughty, his film about juvenile delinquency. Neo cast Yee as the lead's younger brother after Yee revised the language in a script given to him. Neo allowed Yee, who had three scenes in the movie, to write his own dialogue.
YouTube videos
By 2012, Yee had begun uploading videos to YouTube aimed at both Singaporean and international youth. In one, he called the Chinese New Year an imitation of New Year's Day. Garnering over 150,000 views, The New Paper described Yee's video as "mocking" the origins of the Chinese zodiac, but Yee later clarified that the video was satirical. Yee also uploaded videos concerning topics such as Singapore's then-prohibition of homosexuality, The Hunger Games, Valentine's Day, Boyhood, and his decision to drop out of school "to pursue 'career' as a 17-year-old boy ranting in front of a video camera".Video criticising Lee Kuan Yew and the Singaporean government
On 23 March 2015, Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore, died. Four days later, Yee uploaded a YouTube video titled Lee Kuan Yew is Finally Dead!, in which he said that both Lee and Jesus were "power-hungry and malicious" individuals who deceived their followers into thinking otherwise. Apart from hoping that Lee would not rest in peace, Yee also said that Lee was a "horrible person", an "awful leader" and a dictator who made his followers believe that he stood for democratic ideals, and criticised Singapore's taxes for overshadowing the government's spending of money on the public. Lastly, Yee issued a challenge to Lee's son, former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, stating that he would "oblige to dance with him" if sued by the latter., the video had been viewed more than 880,000 times.Before uploading the video, Yee said that he was worried about the legal ramifications, such as the Sedition Act. He told his mother that he was making a video criticising Lee, and uploaded it despite her insistence against the upload. Yee also said that his ideas were influenced by meet-ups with members of the Singapore Democratic Party, one of whom introduced him to Roy Ngerng's blog. In court documents, he also admitted that he had criticised Christianity and Lee to initiate discussions on what he saw as flaws with religion and Singapore. He acknowledged the potential offences but continued posting blogs, saying that he hoped for positive changes resulting from the discussions he drew.
Yee continued to criticise the government of Singapore after his arrest; on 9 September 2015, he uploaded a video titled "PAP king manipulators", in which he criticised the governing People's Action Party ; however, the video did not lead to an arrest.
Criticism of Islam
In response to Calvin Cheng's comments on killing the children of terrorists, Yee wrote a post on 27 November 2015 stating, "Oh yes and fuck Islam, and Allah doesn't exist, but say you see a prick from ISIS who wants to kill or has even killed before, don't think that's a scenario where it's alright to kill him." His statement prompted a subsequent police investigation in December 2015 for posting offensive material on his blog. Yee also created a YouTube video series called "Religion Horrors", which contained two videos titled "Refuting Islam with Their Own Quran" and "Responding to the Bullshit of Christians" that criticised the respective religions.Controversy over defending paedophilia
In November 2017, while in the United States, Yee uploaded a series of YouTube videos titled Why Pedophilia Is Alright, Don't Discriminate Pedophiles, and Free Speech for the Pedophile. He had previously criticised age of consent legislation, defending the notion that if he had acted on his desires as a 16-year-old to have sex with a 20-year-old, the adult should not be imprisoned as he had "perfectly ". The videos were met with strong backlash, including death threats. Out of money, Yee asked his followers for donations via Facebook, stating that he preferred borrowing to a job that he disliked.Shortly thereafter, his Twitter account was suspended. In April 2018, the Toy Association pulled ads from YouTube following a CNN report that they had been appearing on Yee's channel, which was being used to promote paedophilia. YouTube subsequently pulled all ads from Yee's videos and banned him from monetising content. In early May 2018, YouTube terminated Yee's channel for violating community guidelines. In July 2018, Yee's Patreon account was shut down, and in December 2018, his WordPress blog, as well as his Facebook and Twitter accounts, were shut down, since he had used them to continue expressing pro-paedophilia views. After a 9-month internet hiatus, Yee stated in a September 2019 interview that he had been busy creating pro-paedophilia videos. In August 2020, Yee claimed in a blog post that he had been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder while in an American immigrant detention facility, and that he planned on rebranding himself under the name "Polocle".
Legal issues in Singapore (2015–2016)
Arrest
On 29 March 2015, Yee was arrested on the grounds of intentionally wounding religious or racial feelings, threatening, abusive or insulting communication, and obscenity. 32 police reports were made against Yee's uploading of the 2015 video, while another police report was made against alleged obscene material on Yee's blog, which contained an image titled "Lee Kuan Yew buttfucking Margaret Thatcher". Toh filed a police report on the day of the arrest because she was unable to control his behaviour. This was later reported by Today, which added that, on 5 May, she told the police that she no longer wanted to provide a statement.Charge, bail and remand
On 31 March, three charges were read out to Yee in the State Courts of Singapore; the first charge was that his 2015 video violated Section 298 of the Penal Code for containing remarks that deliberately wounded religious feelings. The second charge, which was declared nolle prosequi on 30 April, was that it contained potentially distressing statements concerning Lee, as prohibited by Section 4 of the Protection from Harassment Act 2014. The third charge was under Section 292 of the Penal Code, which concerned the obscene image Yee uploaded on 28 March. Yee was released on a S$20,000 bail and prohibited from posting online content while the case was ongoing.On 14 April 2015, Yee violated his bail conditions by asking on both his blog and Facebook page for public donations to fund his legal fees; the blog post also linked to the video and image he had uploaded the prior month. Yee was remanded in Changi Prison from 17 to 21 April because no one had posted bail, despite the bail amount only needing to be pledged instead of being physically deposited. Yee was released on bail by Vincent Law, a Christian family and youth counsellor. Additionally, three lawyers—Alfred Dodwell, Chong Jia Hao, and Ervin Tan—offered to represent Yee pro bono.
On 29 April, Yee flouted his bail conditions again by making two blog posts; the first questioned his bail terms, and the second accused his father of being physically abusive. District Judge Kessler Soh asked him to take the posts down, but Yee refused. Concurrently, the bail amount was raised to S$30,000, and Yee was again remanded. Yee rejected Law's offer to post bail for him again as Yee did not want to be "gagged", leading to Law discharging himself. Yee's lawyers applied for a change in bail amount and conditions on 6 May, claiming that the ban on uploading online information was too wide. Tay Yong Kwang, a judge at the High Court, upheld Yee's bail conditions after he rejected the prosecution's request to reduce the bail amount and exempt him from reporting daily to a police station, contingent on his attendance of psychiatric counselling.