A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
Wong is a Singaporean Ministry of Education (MOE) teaching scholar, meaning Wong’s University fees were paid for him so he could study at York. The news of his arrest has been heavily reported on in Chinese media and online, and especially in the Singaporean media.
TODAYonline, a Singaporean media website, have revealed that the MOE’s scholarship requirements do not include disciplinary records. This meant that an incident in 2002 in which Wong was caught peeping in the ladies’ toilet, and for which he received a public caning, was overlooked. A ministry spokesman defended their selection process, saying that Wong was selected on account of his academic and co-curricular records from the Chinese High School. However, the Ministry of Education has now revoked his scholarship, which was awarded in 2006.
Wong is a former student of the Hwa Chong Institution, which was one of two schools in the world outside the UK featured in Cambridge University's Top 20 Schools for admission in 2009. A Hwa Chong spokesperson has said on the matter “The school takes a firm stand against child pornography. It must never be condoned. The school is saddened by this news involving an alumnus”.
TODAYonline have been in touch with the University of York’s Singapore Society, who gave a statement saying that Wong “had a number of good friends within and outside the Singapore community in York. We can't condone his actions, but it's not our position to judge him. Rather, we're committed to helping him through this difficult time. He had shown and expressed great remorse for his past actions and is prepared to face the consequences”.
Here are some reports from Singapore's online newspapers:
http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/11/24/tighter-screening-for-teaching-scholarships-moe/
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_606454.html
I can't help but wonder if the University of York would have accepted his application had it been aware of Wong's past transgression?
I can't help but think it extremely unlikely that any UK institution would enquire into overseas juvenile records for a History course application.
Do you really think it's news that schoolboys try and look round the doors of girls' loos? Half the male population has probably done that! As this was a "public caning" it was done as a school punishment - other caneable school offences include smoking and persistent lateness.
This is in no way a defence of Jonathan Wong - jailing is the correct penalty - but for goodness' sake let's keep a bit of proportion here!
"We can't condone his actions, but it's not our position to judge him. Rather, we're committed to helping him through this difficult time."
I'm a little bit sick of this 'it's not our place to judge' line.
#3 - why?
Well I guess we all have different thresholds or standards for what we deem normal/acceptable/unacceptable/deviant behaviour. News sources report Wong was not just merely "trying to look around" a ladies toilet in a primary school.
http://www.edvantage.com.sg/edvantage/news/news/497972/_We_knew_he_had_issues_.html
But what do I know, perhaps it is acceptable for teenage boys to do these things in other parts of the world (and then publicly caned and sent for professional help) .
Well looks Singapore is keeping it in "proportion" as you put it, following this incident the Ministry of Education is tightening their scholarship vetting process and will require information on specific behavioural problems displayed in school.
http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC101124-0000083/Scholarship-application-testimonials-did-not-contain-past-offences--MOE
@ #2 - I'm hazarding a guess that in the future someone caught "trying to look around" a ladies toilet probably won't stand a chance of being awarded a scholarship by the Singapore government. Would that be "keeping it in proportion" by your standards?.
I understand what #3 is saying. I certainly judge somebody for viewing and downloading content that exploits young children in such a horrific way. I would also judge someone who was aroused by watching somebody get raped and tortured, and then made an effort to obtain content displaying that. I can't say I know whether more downloads lead to more child pornography being made, but it's not unlikely.
Maybe we can't judge him if he feels these are his natural instincts and he can't suppress them. Maybe he should get help and be "cured" if that's at all possible. But the moment he accesses real content and it's no longer fantasy, this is a criminal offence which the law judges anyway - so why can't we?
@4 - #3 here.
a) It's dishonest; of course everyone judges him - he was accessing and storing child pornography.
b) You absolutely should judge him - he was accessing and storing child pornography. If you won't judge someone for that, then what's the point of having the capacity for moral judgement at all?
I'm just tired of these equivocating statements. I really don't see a problem over people exercising judgement over something which is universally condemned. To do otherwise is actually immoral, I would argue.
I'm in agreement with #3. We do have the right to judge him.
I'm also surprised by all the sympathetic comments being posted, maybe people don't want to seem harsh but everyone I have spoken to is pretty disgusted. I hope he receives an appropriate punishment.
Also, why were all the comments on the previous article about this case removed by a moderator? I thought The Yorker was against pointless censorship?
Of course everyone has the right to judge him. But maybe they'd like to judge him by the standards they would apply to themselves? Ever downloaded porn from the internet? I think you're probably kidding yourself if you think you wouldn't be tempted to do the same, were you unfortunate enough to have an attraction to children.
I will say with some confidence that, Wong hasn't made any significant contribution to the abuse of a single child. Although of course I would be quite happy to change my mind if the right evidence comes along, at the moment I will stick to the belief that had he not been caught, the effect of his actions on the world would have been be negligible to 0.
I suggest people are judging by what they feel about his actions, rather than speaking from a rational viewpoint on the significance of them.
I think #9 is an intelligent comment.
It's intelligent to try and get a sense of proportion, especially on internet comments. Judge not lest ye be judged, treat others as you would like to be treated; all of these generic proverbs need to be considered similarly.
And, in this case, he accessed and saved pornography of six year old children being raped.
So, the significance of his actions. He supported the rape of six year old children by showing that there is a demand for that kind of pornography, therefore having a partial, though not direct, place in encouraging it in the future. Nonetheless, it is still disturbing that he would feel that it is acceptable.
I can believe that some people would believe that children as young as 14, maybe 13, have enough maturity to make their own decisions when it comes to sexual intercourse and that therefore having a sexual interest in children of that age is acceptable. I disagree - and either way, the law is the law. But, either way, I doubt that anyone will agree that a six-year-old has that kind of choice and therefore the actions are genuinely disturbing to right-minded people. This news story came about because of horrendous cruelty and the life-changing effects of rape on a young child and the effects of Wong's actions will do nothing to stop further increases, even if it doesn't actively encourage child abuse.
And I am disturbed that anyone would argue otherwise, that anyone would argue that sex with 6-year-olds is alright if you're inclined that way.
Not that it really matters, child porn is child porn, and in any case is a bad thing, but if Nouse is to be believed, and these images rated 4 or 5 on the COPINE scale, then no actual "rape" was involved. Despite what Nouse says, COPINE is a 1-10 scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COPINE_scale ). 4 or 5 are "posing" and "erotic posing" respectively. Clearly these are in an erotic context, and there's certainly a possibility that those who produced these images produced other, far worse ones, but what Wong had was not, relatively speaking "that bad".
I'm by no means endorsing Wong's actions, or child porn in general, child porn is just...bad, but I'd hazard that this is why his sentence is so "lenient"...
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