Arrested For Being Pro-Palestinians?

by Teo Soh Lung

Reading the Ministry of Home Affairs’ press release of 24 June 2026 is depressing. In March 2026, Tarmizi bin Mohd Taha (30) was issued with an Order for Detention (OD) and Cyrus Dzulqarnain Al-Shariar (19) was released on a Restriction Order (RO). Cyrus was probably detained for investigation for about 30 days as permitted by the Internal Security Act (ISA). Both orders did not specify the duration. Under the ISA, detention and restriction orders are for indefinite duration. The ministry has finally realised that it is pointless to state the duration of these orders.

It is my observation that whenever there is unrest, wars or new organised movements in other parts of the world, the Singapore government is quick to use the ISA against its opponents or people who have different opinions from them. The arrests are made on the pretext that citizens need to be protected from impending terrorist attacks.

It started with the arrests of alleged communists from the 1960s to the 1970s. Then the euro-communists in the 1970s and the Marxists in the 1980s. In the 1990s, I wondered who would be the next victims. Fortunately for the following 20 years, no one was arrested. Chia Thye Poh who was arrested in 1966 was released in 1989. He was subjected to severe restrictions for another 9 years. Vincent Cheng was released in 1990. So for 20 years, there were no ISA prisoners.

In 2001, the World Trade Centre was destroyed. Al-Qaeda was blamed for carrying out the aeroplane attacks. At least 38 Muslims in Singapore were arrested and detained under the ISA in 2001 and 2002 accused of being members of Al-Qaeda regional group, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). See https://function8.sg/?s=detainees+list . I am not sure if three of those detainees are still in detention.

Who destroyed the World Trade Centre? The Americans like to believe that it was Osama bin Laden and his group who did it. They killed him but was he the culprit? Why didn’t they try him in America? Till today, rumours are still circulating that the attacks were not carried out by Al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden but by Israel.

The government’s press releases concerning ISA arrests since 2001 are always the same. The usual allegations are made – that they were inspired by groups far away and were influenced by social media and chat groups; they were self-radicalised and their families were not aware of what they were doing; they wanted to join the resistant movement in Syria but have no financial means to travel there; they wanted to destroy the world order and were anti Zionists, anti LGBT and anti-women. In the most recent press release, Tarmizi was alleged to have communicated with a foreign contact “who claimed to be a HAMAS member”. Cyrus was pro Hamas and viewed them as defenders of the Palestinians.

Bearing in mind that those detained do not even know of the existence of such press releases, the government is free to say what it wants. So we have to read all these press releases with open minds. Don’t trust the reports in The Straits Times. They do not do or are not permitted to do investigative journalism.

I find the government’s allegations against the detainees baseless. To continue to detain Tarmizi over his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ludicrous. When it claimed that he and Cyrus’ “radicalisation were triggered by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, what do they mean? What is wrong with Tarmizi becoming “deeply interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following HAMAS’ October 7, 2023 attacks against Israel? Lots of people become aware of the decades old conflict only after October 7.

It is time for our government to stop using the ISA as a tool to control the minds of people who are interested in what is happening outside Singapore. Singaporeans should not be ignorant of what is happening in other parts of the world or as the Malays nicely put it, we should not be “Katak di-bawah tempurung” (frogs under the shell). It is easy to arrest and detain people on the words of the minister. For detainees, it is pointless to seek fairness and justice from our courts as various habeas corpus applications have shown. The government should think of the families of the detainees who may have been deprived of their sole bread winners.