Infamous Amos looking forward to making more videos
nEW YORK: Singaporean Amos Yee, fresh out of nine months’ detention in American jails after being granted asylum by the US authorities says he plans to make more videos, expanding his horizons to include the United States, and then move to bigger projects.
Asked if he planned to study, the 18-year-old said: “Hell, no.”
“The plan is to make more and more videos. I came here to escape the horrible anti-free speech laws in Singapore. Now I can get back to work, get back to my life,” he told The Straits Times.
“I am thinking I’ll do the video thing and the Internet activism on Facebook and YouTube for as long as I’m satisfied,” he said.
But he added: “I don’t think I’ll be satisfied just being like a YouTuber even if I become like really famous.”
“Maybe I’ll do the videos for a couple of years and then after that branch out into bigger projects,” he said over the phone from Chicago.
“I’m still very interested in making more political videos. I have many ideas for comedy.”
Yee arrived in Chicago last December seeking political asylum, and was routinely detained.
The detention became prolonged when although he was granted asylum, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contested that and for the duration of the legal proceedings he was kept in detention despite his lawyer’s attempts to get him released.
On Tuesday, the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed the DHS’s appeal opposing asylum.
“The board wholeheartedly agreed with the decision of the Honourable Immigration Judge Samuel Cole, who on March 24, 2017, granted Amos Yee asylum based on persecution by the Singapore government because of Yee’s political beliefs,” his attorneys Grossman Law said in a statement.
Asked what his time in an American jail had been like, Yee said: “It was manageable. It was far better than the experience in the Singapore jail.”
Yee left Singapore for Chicago last December, a day before he was to report for a medical examination ahead of enlistment into national service, and sought political asylum.
He made headlines when he was charged in Singapore in 2015 for engaging in hate speech against Christians in a video he posted and for publishing an obscene image of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. He was convicted and given a four-week jail sentence. — The Straits Times/Asia News Network