S’porean who supported IS online arrested under ISA
TODAY file photo.
SINGAPORE — A 33-year-old Singaporean man has been arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for being supportive of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis, also known as IS) on social media, “with the intention of spreading the terror group’s radical ideology”, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced on Thursday (Oct 6).
Asrul Alias, a technician, was issued with a Restriction Order (RO) for two years, starting August, and will undergo religious counselling. A person under an RO cannot change his residence and employment or travel out of Singapore without official approval. He also cannot issue public statements or join organisations without approval.
This is the sixth round of detentions and orders under the ISA announced this year, and comes less than two months after the last round involving four self-radicalised Singaporeans who engaged in terrorism-related activities.
Since 2002, more than 80 people have been detained for terrorism-related activities. There are currently 17 people placed on Orders of Detention, two on Suspension Directions and 25 on Restriction Orders under the ISA.
The MHA said Asrul started reading about the conflict in Syria in 2014, during which he encountered pro-Isis materials, including videos that featured Isis fighters in combat. Asrul also watched religious sermons by radical preachers and videos on militant groups operating in Syria online, the ministry added.
Asrul became influenced by the terrorist group’s propaganda and began to actively look for pro-Isis materials to share on social media with the intention of spreading the group’s radical ideology, the ministry said. Asrul also countered criticism of Isis when he came across it online.
Late last year or early this year, Asrul stopped posting pro-Isis and pro-militant materials online, after warnings from a family member and a close friend. But he stayed supportive of the terror group and continued to read Isis-related materials online, said the MHA.
“Our investigation showed that he had become radicalised. However, as he was not an imminent security threat, he was not detained but given an RO under the ISA,” the MHA added.
It also stressed that extremist rhetoric continues to radicalise scores of people across the globe and it is a challenge to detect self-radicalised individuals “who have not previously attracted security attention and who are not part of a structured organisation”.
Family, friends and colleagues are better placed to detect signs of radicalisation and it is “critical that they alert the authorities early of such individuals to save them from getting involved in violent activities that could harm themselves and others”.
Meanwhile, the MHA said it has released a Singaporean man who was detained under the ISA in August last year “after it was assessed that he no longer posed a security threat that required him to be placed in preventive detention”.
Mohammad Razif Yahya, 28, was among three Singaporeans who attended a religious institution in Yemen before becoming involved in the violence there. He and Amiruddin Sawir, 53, had used firearms to fight off the Houthis — a Shia group — and were “prepared to kill and be killed as ‘martyrs’”; while Mohamed Mohideen Mohamed Jais, 25, was armed “with the aim to kill”, the MHA said in March this year.
