The Turnbull government has criticised Singapore's jailing of eight weeks pregnant Australian publisher Ai Takagi for publishing seditious articles as the 23-year-old defended her hugely popular website, The Real Singapore. 
"We regret that Ms Takagi was given a custodial sentence, given she is young, pregnant and had issued an apology," a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a rare comment on a judicial case in another country, except in matters involving a possible death sentence.
The statement came as Takagi, who has been sentenced to 10 months jail, told Fairfax Media the website that attracted 134 million page views over nine months allowed Singaporeans to share their views.
"The website wasn't as has been painted in the Singapore media," Takagi said after receiving the stiffest sentence imposed in Singapore for publishing articles deemed to be seditious.
"Actually it was about citizen journalism so that people could air their views about all sorts of things," she said on Thursday, a day after apologising in court for any harm she had caused Singaporeans.
"There were over 30,000 articles published on the website but they obviously picked out only about six ... but it was painted like the whole website was pitching foreigners and Singaporeans against each other."
Takagi said it is highly likely she will give birth to her baby while in jail.
"I am a bit worried about that," she said, adding she hasn't been told if she will be taken to a hospital for the birth.
She has been given until   April 22 to organise her personal affairs before going to jail.
Takagi, who established the website in 2012 when she was studying law at the University of Queensland, told a court before she was sentenced that she knows "the harmony which Singapore enjoys today requires careful and continuous efforts on the part of everyone, citizens and visitors alike, to maintain. I sincerely apologise for the harm I have caused through my actions."
Singapore's sedition laws make it an offence to promote hostility between different races or classes in the society, which has large ethnic-Chinese, ethnic-Malay and ethnic-Indian populations.
The laws have been used to stifle free speech in the strictly controlled state.
Media representative groups have also criticised Takagi's conviction.
Takagi and Singaporean Yang Kaiheng, 27, a fellow student at the University of Queensland who she was to later marry, were arrested while visiting Singapore in   February last year.
Police received a complaint the website had published comment inciting hatred in Singapore's Filipino community. The website was shut three months later.
Yang has pleaded not guilty to similar charges and his trial has been set for Monday.