An Australian in Singapore who is accused of promoting hatred will plead guilty to sedition charges. Ai Takagi, the former editor of the socio-political blog The Real Singapore, told the court that she intends to plead guilty on Tuesday, while her Singaporean husband, Yang Kaiheng, is denying the charges.

Their lawyer, Remy Choo Zheng Xi, told the media that it was “not an easy decision” for the Australian national to plead guilty. Yang, on the other hand, will start trial on Friday “to clear his name.”

The couple, who were married in October, are accused of promoting ill will through their website. Deputy Public Prosecutors G Kannan, Suhas Malhotra and Sheryl Janet George said on Monday that Takagi and Yang wrote false information on their website and represented them as truth. TRS “even resorted to outright and blatant fabrication in order to attract Internet users to their website – all with the objective of increasing their advertising revenue,” Channel News Asia quoted the prosecutors as saying.

Takagi and Yang allegedly profited handsomely from the website, which was described by the prosecutors as “nothing more than a cauldron of hostility and ill-will.” The site published “contributions” from ordinary Singaporeans who were also doctored to “sensationalise faultlines and create social divides.” The articles targeted foreigners from the Philippines, India and China.

DPP Kannan added that the 23-year-old Australian and 27-year-old Singaporean clearly considered “accuracy, propriety and truthfulness as necessary casualties” in gaining high Internet traffic to boost their advertising revenue. The couple earned $20,000 to more than $50,000 per month from the website.

Takagi apparently adopted the pen name Farhan to claim in an article that TRS aimed to instil fear in companies for hiring foreigners without considering the local workforce. She is said to have had control over the content published on TRS, including writing articles herself and selecting those submitted by contributors. However, Takagi, who resides in Australia, never lived, studied or worked in Singapore.

Yang, who claimed he was only involved with TRS for a month in 2012, also said to have admitted to the authorities to being a writer and editor for the blog site, which will prove he was deeply involved.

The accused are each facing seven charges under the Sedition Act for allegedly playing up racism and xenophobia on the site. Their charges include withholding documents on the site’s advertising revenues from police. They face up to three years in jail and up to SG$5,000 (AU$4,900) in fines. Under Singapore’s sedition laws, it’s an offence to promote hostility between different races or classes in the city, which has around 40 percent foreigners.

According to TNP, one article in the website allegedly “falsely asserted” that a Filipino family started a disturbance at a Hindu festival in February. Another article, which stated why Singaporeans were annoyed with Filipinos in the country, was “not based on any facts” and was “calculated to inflame both Singaporeans and Filipinos.”

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