Epilogue to detention

Article #34

After I was released, I learned about what happened while I was in detention. Some of my friends had met with Shireen to offer help. They said “Zul would have done the same for us.”

The ISD then called them in for interrogation. After their interrogations, they abandoned my family. Shireen contacted them and they ignored her. From AlMakhazin, only Mohamed and Shawal continued to contact my family and support them.

My brother Zulkarnain was also called in for interrogation. The Senior ISD officer, Chang, told my brother they could cancel his security clearance which meant he could not work as a cabin crew anymore. He was told he was an ISIS supporter because the ISD said I was.

They threatened to take his daughters away.

“You click ‘like’ on his Facebook posts right? That means you are the same.” Chang accused him. I learned the Tanah Merah Prison officer, ASP Rozale was part of the ISD too. Rozale interrogated my brother and threatened him. After my arrest, they blocked my brother’s clearance several times. He had to keep applying for clearance to keep working.

Chang told my brother it would be terrible for his daughters if he was detained for several years. They would have to grow up without him. I did not know about any of this while I was in detention.

In mid 2019, Zulkarnain asked me if he should retire from Singapore Airlines and migrate to Australia. I told him to do it. In June 2019, he left Singapore for Australia.

Several other friends said they were called in for interrogations by ISD. The message was clear. Stay away from me and my family. Or get the same fate.

The ISD listed me internationally as a terrorist supporter and flagged my bank accounts.

Ong told me that any bank account I had, whether in Singapore, Australia or anywhere else would be flagged. The ISD shut down my Singapore bank account.

My brother and sister in law owned a bakery in Singapore. In 2014, because I helped them in their marketing, they made me a director of the company. When I was arrested, their company bank accounts were shut down.

The same thing happened with my family’s bank accounts in Australia. Because ISD listed me internationally as a terrorist supporter, my children and brother’s bank accounts with Commonwealth Bank Australia were shut down.

Iskandar was on the committee of an Australian registered aid agency and a signatory for their bank account with the Commonwealth Bank. It was shut down too.

In January 2021, a couple of months after my return, I set up a bank account with WestPac. Shireen and a couple of our children had accounts with WestPac too. The rest had accounts at other banks. I listed my home address with WestPac. About a week later, Shireen and I went shopping at Broadmeadows Shopping Centre. I wanted to buy an Irene Nemirovsky’s book, The Fires of Autumn. My debit card was rejected. Shireen used her card and it was rejected too.

I called WestPac and we were told both our accounts had been shut down. No reason was given. My other children who had accounts at WestPac found out their accounts were shut down too.

They changed banks. I could not be seen to be associated with them. If the banks traced me and my address to my family, their accounts would be shut too.

In December 2020, I contacted CPF to withdraw my superannuation funds. I believe I had about SG$50,000. I was told that I needed to have the forms signed off at the Singapore High Commission in Canberra, about 600km away. I was given an appointment in March.

In March 2021, I went to Canberra with Shireen. We had all the documents ready and they were signed off. I mailed the documents to the CPF office in Singapore. I was told it would take 6-7 weeks to get my money.

I discussed Singapore politics again. Before I was arrested, I had setup a couple of dormant accounts to be admin of my FB pages in case my actual account was shut down.

My friends advised me not to criticise the PAP until I get my CPF funds. “You know they will make trouble for you. Maybe you won’t get your CPF.”

But I could not. “I thought about that.” I told them. “But how can I encourage Singaporeans to speak up against the PAP if I was afraid?”

Singaporeans who speak up against the PAP’s corruption would be putting themselves on the line. How can I expect them to speak and yet I keep silent because I am afraid to lose money? I want my money. But if the ISD blocks it, then it was not meant to be. I pray Allah will replace it with something better. From other sources.

I waited for months.

I called or emailed the CPF board every few weeks. In July, when I called the CPF office, I found out that nothing had been done to process my application. A few months later, the CPF officers asked for my Singapore passport and identification card (which the ISD had and was never returned to me).

More than 6 months after submitting my withdrawal application, on 13th October 2021, I received an email from the case officer at CPF, Adeline Ng. She told me to contact “Jairam” at the Ministry of Home Affairs. I called the number she gave and it was ISD’s hotline. The ISD officer said he did not know a “Jairam” but told me to forward the email to them.

My biggest worry however, was my mother. She was alone in Singapore. My brother and his family were in Tasmania. While I was in detention, my mother refused to leave Singapore because she wanted to visit me every week.

But with the COVID border closures, she was not able to come over to Australia when I was released. I applied several times for her to be allowed into Australia. All my applications were rejected.

In mid October 2021, the Australian government announced that non-Australian parents of Australian citizens and residents would be allowed entry. I immediately applied for my mother to be granted permission. On 25th October, I received an email allowing my mother to enter Australia.

I had been terrified of anything happening to my mother the whole time. She immediately bought a flight to Melbourne departing Singapore on 8th November. The few extra days would give her time to pack and get her affairs in Singapore sorted.

On the morning of 5th November, as she was packing her suitcase, 3 ISD officers went to her house. She knew one of them, Zubaidah, the Aftercare Officer who liaised with her while I was in detention. The other two were a lady, Nor and a man Ismail.

My 75 year old mother, who was living alone and getting ready to come to Melbourne was taken away by these ISD officers. They wanted her to give me a message.

They took her to their office at Onraet Road.

At Onraet Road, the ISD officers took my mother’s phone away and demanded she give them her email password. After about a couple of hours, she was told she could leave. But they kept her phone for a few more hours. She was sent home and a few hours later, they returned her phone.

She was told to deliver a message:

“Tell Zul to stop criticising MUIS”, the Islamic Council of Singapore.

And if I wanted my CPF funds, I had to see the ISD first.

I grew up a PAP supporter. I believed in the system. I supported it. I advocated for it. I fought for the rights of Muslim women to education and employment. As I learned about the PAP’s heavy hand, I became disillusioned. But I harboured hope in their fairness.

I was told I am too soft hearted. Maybe I am. I cannot stand seeing others hurt. I was arrested by the ISD, my family was threatened, stories were manufactured about me. I spent almost 4.5 years in solitary confinement. Without trial.

I was helpless, relying on God’s mercy. My family’s steadfastness. The kindness of strangers. The lawyers, the friends that stood by us.

I experienced how cruel people could be when they have absolute power and convinced that their cruelty was for a greater good.

I have no malice against any of them. I have tried to tell my story as accurately as I remember them.

While I am not against the people who committed such cruelty on my family and me, I am against the PAP’s corruption. The system is corrupt because it can be corrupted.

We believe there is little corruption in Singapore because we focus only on financial corruption. We do not discuss corrupt abuse of power. This needs to change.

We need transparency and accountability. As long as information is restricted, as long as power is unchecked, as long as democracy is demonised, corruption will prevail.

The ISD needs to remember that the PAP is not Singapore. Their responsibility is to the country. Not the PAP.

No matter how much the PAP may want to equate the two.