A 16-year-old teen blogger in Singapore, who was convicted of distributing an obscene image and offending religious sentiment, was remanded in custody for three weeks today.

Amos Yee was first arrested on March 29 after posting the offending messages online about the late Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.

He had been on bail ahead of an expected sentencing hearing, but was instead remanded while the court waited for a report on whether he could undergo reformative training.

The prosecution noted that Yee had failed to attend scheduled appointments with a probation officer, and that he had republished a video and blog post condemning Lee and containing an explicit picture of him and late former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

The prosecution recommended a period in a Reformative Training Centre, a punishment reserved for young offenders between the age of 14 and 21 years of age.

The defence argued that reformative training would not be proportionate to his crime, and said that a “short period of incarceration should suffice”.

Yee will next appear before the court on June 23. The minimum period of reformative training is 18 months, with a maximum of three years.

- dpa