Singapore detains 2 for ‘planning to join Daesh’

SINGAPORE (AA) – Two Singaporeans suspected of planning to travel to Syria to join Daesh have received two-year detention orders under the country’s Internal Security Act.

The Straits Times cited the Ministry of Home Affairs as saying Friday that the men had used the Internet to look for information on how to travel to Syria to fight for the extremist group.

Rosli Hamzah, a 50-year-old car washer, reportedly researched possible travel routes to Syria, while Mohamed Omar Mahadi, a 33-year-old waste truck driver, “contacted militants for travel advice”, according to the statement.

They were allegedly “radicalized” after listening to a radio station based on the Indonesian island of Batam, where five men were recently arrested on suspicion of planning a rocket attack near Singapore’s central business district.

Under Singapore’s Internal Security Act, detention orders can be issued by the Minister of Home Affairs, allowing the state to hold an individual in detention without trial. The orders can be renewed an unlimited number of times.

In late July, two-year detention orders were served to two Singaporean men accused of radicalization and terrorism-related activities.

On July 12, four Bangladeshi migrant workers who were detained without trial under the Act in April were sent to prison for 24-60 months for financing terrorism.

The Act has been criticized by human rights activists in Singapore, and the government accused of using the law to quash dissent.

In 1987, social workers, lawyers and activists were detained under the Internal Security Act and accused of being engaged in a "Marxist Conspiracy".

Although some of the detainees made public confessions -- which they later said were made under duress -- none of them were charged in court, and no evidence of a conspiracy ever produced.