WHAT THEY ALLEGEDLY DID
ONG Kian Cheong, 49, and Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, 44, face a total of four charges.
Two are for distributing seditious publications, and one each for distributing an objectionable publication and possession of the seditious materials.
They allegedly distributed an evangelistic comic tract titled The Little Bride to Mr Irwan Ariffin, 32, at his Sembawang Drive home in October last year; and distributing another publication, Who Is Allah?, to Mr Isa Raffee, 35, at Segar Road in Bukit Panjang last December.
The charges say the publications had the tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between Christians and Muslims in Singapore.
On March 6 last year, they are said to have distributed The Little Bride to a Woodlands resident, Madam Farhati Ahmad, having reasonable cause to believe that it was objectionable as it dealt with matters of religion and was likely to cause feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will or hostility between the two religious groups.
The booklets are published by Chick Publications, an American publishing company which produces and markets Protestant fundamentalist pamphlets, DVDs, VCDs, videos, books, and posters. Its best-known products are Chick tracts, which are comic tracts available in nearly 100 languages.
WHAT THEY FACE
Under the Sedition Act, the maximum penalty for distributing any seditious publication is a $5,000 fine and/or a jail term of up to three years on each charge.
For possession of such materials, Ong and Chan can be fined up to $2,000 and/or jailed for up to 18 months.
The penalty for distributing any objectionable publication is a fine of up to $5,000 and/or a jail term of up to 12 months.
PREVIOUS CASES
In 2005, a 27-year-old man was jailed for a month for posting inflammatory and vicious remarks about Muslims and Malays on the Internet.
In 2006, a 21-year-old accounts assistant received a stern warning for posting an offensive cartoon of Jesus Christ on his blog.