Among other matters the sedition laws makes it an offence to promote hostility between different races or classes in the multiracial city-state, which is mainly ethnic Chinese. Some observers have accused the portal of fanning xenophobia in the labour-starved island nation of 5.5 million people, 40 per cent of them foreigners. If found guilty of making seditious remarks in public, the two can be fined up to Sg$5,000 ($3,700) or jailed up to three years, or both, for each charge. They are due back in court for a pre-trial hearing on May 13.