马士·斯拉麦在哪儿？

WHERE IS MAS SELAMAT?

By Teo Soh Lung

The Singapore Terrorism Threat Assessment Report 2021 (the Report) was released by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 23 June 2021. See https://www.mha.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-library/singapore-terrorism-threat-assessment-report-2021.pdf

This 24 page report does not tell us much. It fudges on numbers and details. It does not tell us anything about the ISA prisoners now detained for decades and years. It doesn't even disclose the number ISA prisoners now detained in our high security Changi Prison.

I am concerned with the wasted lives in Changi Prison. What has happened to Mas Selamat bin Kastari? He escaped from the Whitley High Security Prison on 27 Feb 2008. He was arrested by the Malaysian police and handed over to Singapore on 24 Sep 2010. Since then, he has been in jail and we do not have any news of him. His son, Mashadi Mas Selamat who was arrested in Oct 2013 is also in prison under the ISA.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had accused Mas Selamat of having terrorist connections outside Singapore. Have these organisations made any attempt to rescue him or bomb Changi Prison or the defunct Whitley Prison? We hear nothing of such incidents. Indeed, the Report notes and I quote: “There is currently no specific nor credible intelligence of an imminent terrorist attack against Singapore.”

Mas Selamat is not the only long serving ISA prisoner. There are three others – Haji Ibrahim bin Haji Maidin (imprisoned since December 2001), Alahuddeen bin Abdullah (imprisoned since October 2002) and Mohd Aslam bin Yar Ali Khan (imprisoned since Dec 2002). These are the 9/11 prisoners, when America's Twin Towers were crashed to ground zero. They are our Guantanamo prisoners. Why are these individuals still being detained? Were they part of the 9/11 plot. If they were, their handlers have obviously forsaken them.

The Singapore government needs to tell us why these prisoners and others are still being detained. If these men are really so dangerous and have links with terrorist organisations outside Singapore, show us the evidence. Don't just keep renewing their detention orders every two years. The length of their imprisonment will soon surpass Operation Coldstore prisoners - Dr Lim Hock Siew, Ho Piao, Said Zahari, Lee Tee Tong and Dr Poh Soo Kai. Are they going to smash the record of Dr Chia Thye Poh who was detained for 26 years followed by six years of severe restrictions?

The Report claims that the greatest threat facing Singapore today is “self-radicalised Singaporeans and foreigners.” Several youths and a child are being detained for allegedly being self-radicalised. If this is Singapore's present security problem, the long term prisoners should no longer pose a threat and should be released.

What is self-radicalisation?

It is absurd to think that any government in the world can prevent terrorism by locking up these individuals indefinitely. As long as the internet is available, people will search the web to satisfy their curiosity. The government can call it self-radicalisation but to the individual, it is seeking knowledge.

It is a wrong to arrest and detain people who harbour thoughts of working for organisations involved in causes in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Israel or China as several of the detainees have been accused of. They are not threats to our national security though the government may suspect that they may one day cause harm to Singapore and must be “nipped in the bud”.

The Report made much of a 20 year old national serviceman who allegedly intended to attack Jews and a 16 year old Protestant Christian child who allegedly wanted to attack two mosques because he is influenced by “right wing ideologies”. The evidence disclosed are flimsy.

I do not deny that individuals can cause extensive harm and damage. But the frequent use of the “nipped in the bud” excuse by the Singapore government has given the impression that it is just a convenient excuse to arrest and detain individuals. I suspect the purpose is to instil fear in people and to justify the myriad of laws that have been and are being enacted to control every aspect of the lives of people.

The ISD claims that the youths are detained for rehabilitation purposes. But what kind of rehabilitation programmes do they undergo? If people who have been detained for 20 years cannot be released because they have not been rehabilitated, can we be sure that these young people will be successfully rehabilitated in a few months? Incidentally, they have already been imprisoned for more than six months as of today.

It is unacceptable that our super police force with high tech equipment, drones and sophisticated weapons, aided by cameras everywhere and 90,000 cctvs in HDB housing estates and town centres as well as Covid-19 tokens and ERP gantries cannot ensure the safety of Singapore without resorting to the use of the ISA. Added to that, Singaporeans are exceedingly law abiding.

The Report does not disclose that almost all detainees who have been issued with detention orders have been gazetted as terrorists under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act. What is the purpose of gazetting ISA detainees as terrorists?

Finally, as in the past, the number of individuals investigated under the ISA is under reported. It does not include people who were detained for investigation for 30 days or less. Since 2015, the number of individuals dealt with under the ISA should therefore be about 104 and not 54 as stated in the Report.