SINGAPORE: The city state remains vigilant to religious extremists and tip-offs from family and friends help it counter the issue, says its Minister in charge of Muslim Affairs.
Masagos Zulkifli (pic) said the authorities were usually informed when there were those out to recruit people to do certain things.
“This is done through the black flag army or games such as Roblox. So, families and friends are very important in sensing something wrong.
“When we catch them early, they are not so rooted and not so confused. And our religious teachers who are well-trained and well-ingrained in understanding rehabilitation processes have been successful in bringing them back (to the right path),” he told a media delegation participating in the Malaysia Journalists Visit Programme to Singapore recently.
On the number of such cases, Masagos, who is also Minister for Social and Family Development and Second Minister for Health, said it was random and “happened once in a while”.
He said nobody knew when the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network in Singapore was busted around 2001.
“We got information that the Afghan invasion happened, there was this cell in Singapore and they were arrested. Our religious teachers and leaders were shocked that Islam could be translated into such extreme views and violent intents.
“In their disbelief, they sort of doubted what the government was saying and they asked to see the detainees themselves,” he said, recalling that the government acceded to the request.
He said wanting to understand what caused the detainees to have such extreme views and their convoluted ideas on jihad and war, the religious leaders volunteered to rehabilitate the detainees and tagged themselves the Religious Rehabilitation Group.
“These religious leaders came together and said, ‘This is not what we caused, but this is what they have been exposed to because of their travels, their contacts, because of the global situation’,” he added.
Masagos revealed that many of them who became wayward had since been rehabilitated, and this made many countries want to learn from Singapore.
He spoke of the hardcore few who could not be changed. “They are very dangerous not only to Singapore but the whole region. It is important for us to always have a reliable core of religious leaders and not allow external influences to come and define things for us.”
The minister said religious leaders met up regularly. “I sit in one of those communities where you find the Archbishop and the Mufti drinking coffee together, looking at problems together, trying to resolve things together. It is a really wonderful situation.”
On the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza, Masagos said on the first week after the Hamas-led attack last Oct 7, the Mufti immediately wrote to the Rabbi in Singapore to tell him that racial and religious harmony in Singapore must be maintained at all cost.
Singapore's minister in charge of Muslim affairs Masagos Zulkifli (second from right) talking to journalist during the Malaysian Journalists' Visit Programme to Singapore.
