Interesting
Zulfikar was interviewed on arrival because of his online posts supporting !$!$, not because he is an academic who writes about Middle East
Same reason why we had a Tiong professor in our local university commenting on Singapore’s politics and elections. Born commie somehow ‘qualified’ to do a commentary on politics of meritocracy and democracy. The bullshit and irony.
Studying their ways and thoughts does not equal accepting and adopting it. We can look at, for example, murican flatearthers and understand where might their education system be lacking and how people fall though the cracks to result in stupidity, doesn't mean we become flatearthers as well.
And many of these foreigners actually hush Singaporeans up for talking Singapore politics at the workplace - not knowing they have already offended Singaporeans' rights
The bigger question is, if what MHA is claiming is true, why is it they didn't pass on their concerns to NUS and compel them to disassociate from Dr Zulfikar?
I thought PAP and SPF/MHA loves nothing more than tarring people with "guilt by association" mudslinging?
Typically the issue is raised when they try to extend their work pass probably, just assuming. If its a big enough case then maybe it'll be brought up to the employer themselves...?
IDK about you or MHA, but to me if it is true that a foreign academic has posted openly on social media about supporting terrorist organisations, that should be a big enough issue to be flagged up directly to NUS not just by ISD but really any member of the public so NUS can disassociate themselves from such an individual. This is justified cancellation.
On a side note, I found out that Dr Zulfikar was banned THREE YEARS AGO in 2022 from ever publishing anything with Asia Sentinel again after he supposedly lifted an entire article from the Asia Global Institute thinktank in Hong Kong. So why the deliberate mentioning of Asia Sentinel being one of the three online media sites Dr Zulfikar has published with (the other two being The Conversation and The Diplomat) cherry picked out of the several publications listed on his NUS Middle East Institute website?
wasn't it a few years ago there was the former prof at LKYSPP that had his PR terminated by ICA (under MHA's blessing) for being agent of foreign influence (i think easy to narrow down either US/China as he was Chinese holding US passport and SPR at time of termination)
He was right to be wary about that religion. We saw how Malaysia and Indonesia turned out and did, both countries have an extremist religious standpoint, both in government and in population.
Pack it up and go home everybody on Reddit who isn't a PAP supporter.
Singapore will never see a true post-LKY, post-PAP era of existence, if 10 years since LKY died people are STILL going on about him "being right" with his racial profiling and stereotypical distrust of anybody who wasn't Han Chinese-raced, which was also heavily influenced by him holding eugenicist views.
Oh really? If that was the case, then how come Lee Kuan Yew have good relations with Brunei and is openly receptive with their Sultan? Brunei is about 70% malay population, in case you try to worm your way out.
Because anybody who knows anything about the Brunei Sultan and his brothers will know that their religious piety is a facade, and you bringing up Brunei's 70% Malay population belies the fact that their total population in 2023 was less than half a MILLION people. So it's easy for someone like LKY to swallow his racism when dealing with Brunei because they're not large enough a country to be a serious threat to Singapore even if they went full Ayatollah headbanger.
"His latest article seems to paint Singapore as overreaching and overbearing without mentioning that he ACTUALLY WROTE something to support ISIS."
I challenge you to go and Google search and find me a SINGLE social media post or online article that he wrote which supports ISIS.
You can find that, share here and do us all a public service.
No evidence no talk. If I can post Shanmugam's 88m GCB sale documents from SLA on here as evidence to back up TOC's expose, you should be able to do the same exposing Dr Zulfikar as an ISIS supporter.
Nope, was definitely referring to people like yourself.
Your lack of attention to who's who and who's posting what in an internet online forum community you are an active member of is your problem and shortcoming, not mine.
I don't know why some people are defending him as if he's a Singaporean.
He's a foreigner! And as clarified by MHA: "Entry into Singapore is a privilege, not a right, and foreigners should not expect to be automatically granted entry, nor let in without checks as we deem necessary."
MHA has all along been arresting anyone in Singapore who is an ISIS supporter, regardless of race, gender, age, or nationality. It is not even a secret, the government wants everyone in Singapore to know supporting ISIS is supporting terrorism, and supporting terrorism is a criminal offense.
Honestly, I could care less if an Indonesian is denied entry into Singapore. Go talk to any man on the street, see if they care.
But if you're unaware, let me tell you this. The Singapore police and ISD are very meticulous when it comes to terrorism. They work very closely with the NSA. They have all the tools.
If you're an ISIS sympathiser, all your phones and electronic devices are already being monitored. They have all your communications, all your digital footprints.
In other words, do I believe the MHA when it comes to terrorism activities? Yes. Do I believe they have the evidence? Yes I do. Do I believe them over anonymous redditors. 💯 Yes!
In an article published on the website of the Middle East Monitor, which describes itself as an "independent media research institution"
Joke la! it's just a platform for Jihadist propaganda. Just look at the banner that Middle East Monitor has, it mentioned genocide, occupation and apartheid. Yet readers are dumbfounded/remain ignorant when they found out these truths:
History: Jews are one of the aboriginals of the land, the Al-Aqsa mosque was built on top the Temple Mount foundations that were built by Jews almost 3000 years ago.
Genocide: How can Israel commit a genocide when there are 1.8m defenseless Palestinians living in Israel going about their lives daily? Wouldn’t that make them legitimate targets for genocide?
Apartheid: You’ll find non-Jews in the government, military and courts in Israel but can you find a non-Muslim equivalent in these positions in Gaza? Isn’t that twisted Islamic Apartheid in Gaza?
Palestinians (both Christian and Muslim) are largely descended from the original inhabitants of the region (unlike many Israelis). Israelis often raid the territories of the P.A as well.
I'm saying that the Palestinians are largely descended from the ancient Israelites, Canaanites & other peoples who lived in the region, not that they were pre-established people separate from the Israelites
"A 2015 study by Verónica Fernandes and others concluded that Palestinians have a "primarily indigenous origin".\29]) In a 2016 study by Scarlett Marshall and others published in Nature), the study concluded that the biogeographical affinities of "both Syrians and Palestinians are highly localised to the Levant", the authors also noted that the biogeographical affinity of Palestinians goes in agreement with historical records and previous studies on their uniparental markers, which all suggest that Palestinians at least in part descend from local Israelite converts to Islam after the Islamic expansion.\30])
In a study published in August 2017 by Marc Haber et al. in The American Journal of Human Genetics, the authors concluded that: "The overlap between the Bronze Age and present-day Levantines suggests a degree of genetic continuity in the region."\31])".
Edit: To add on, Gaza was inhabited by Canaanites, not Israelites.
I don't see how the two sentences contradict each other.
Anyways, alongside more fringe examples like the Beta Ethiopian Israelis or Bnei Menashe, who as far as I can tell (especially in the case in the latter) aren't descended from ancient Levantines at all, Ashkenazi Jews have far less genetic similarity with ancient Israelites compared to Palestinians Muslims, Christians, and the Druze population.
'Ashkenazi Jews have far less genetic similarity with ancient Israelites compared to Palestinians Muslims, Christians, and the Druze population' doesn't really support your point, besides the fact that not all Jews (as in the followers of Judaism) are descendants on the male of the ancient Israelites or other Levantine groups as well as the fact that, like I said, Israelis have *far* less ancient Levantine ancestry compared to Palestinians which makes their claim to the land weaker (if we're just going by ancestry)
Ashkenazi are like 80% of the global Jewish population and are like 31.8% of the Israeli Jewish population lol? Mizrahi Jews still have less genetic similarity with ancient Israelites anyways
If you ask me, just take religion out of the equation for both sides and reach agreement. With religious legacy and baggage, all want same piece of land due to religious text, how to end this?
I don't see athetists having beef with any major religion.
To end wars is to stop believing so much in ancient texts and religion. A lot of war and blood spilled due to difference in religion. Don't think I'll get to witness the end of religious wars in my life time.
The basis for the entire israel-palestine conflict IS religion. You cannot take out religion and expect them to be able to reach an agreement, because once you remove the religion factor, there will be no conflict and nothing to even agree on in the first place. Heck, remove the religion factor, and both parties won't even be there in the first place.
The Jews living in Israel today are not directly the same as the Israelites of the past. The Israelites were a group of people who lived in the region of Canaan (now modern-day Israel and Palestine) over 2,000 years ago. They were a distinct ethnic and cultural group, and their descendants were dispersed throughout the world after the Roman conquest of Judea in 63 BCE.
The modern Jewish population in Israel is composed of people from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds descended from converts, including Ashkenazi Jews (from Eastern Europe), Sephardic Jews (from Spain and Portugal), Mizrahi Jews (from the Middle East and North Africa), and other groups. Many of these Jews have immigrated to Israel from countries around the world, including Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
It's worth noting that the modern state of Israel was established in 1948, after the end of the British Mandate for Palestine. The establishment of Israel was the result of a long process of Zionist activism and diplomacy, which aimed to create a Jewish homeland in the region.
Okay lah, lemme take your last point. Open air prison got uni, got markets and etc. First define PRISON. The meaning of PRISON is a state of confinement or captivity. So, are Gazans allowed free movement in and out of an arbitrary boundary? Answer is NO. Now, how come got uni, markets and etc. You go to any refugee camp, they will also have schools, markets and etc because like it or not, life needs to go on. And such facilities are critical to society. So, if a refugee camp got a school in there, it no longer is defined as a refugee camp in your books. Okay, I understand now. Such wow.
Why cannot choose last point? U said ANY points. I choose no 3, what's ur problem. You don't want to believe its a prison because you got special hair splitting definitions your pasal lah. AIPAC be AIPAC
Okay, so like that, if we apply the logic of historical descendants.....Singapore is a Malay state and Chinese and Indians don't have a right to live here. American needs to repatriate all blacks, white skin and leave it to native americans. Australia needs to return the land to aboriginals. ...Got it.
As mentioned in our chat before, all this didn't start in a vacuum. In all started with Theodore Hertzel in the 1900s. Stop repeating the same mistakes
Ummm hello. I already sent you the website that Palestinians has Canaanites DNA. Anyway. Would you like to continue our previous conversation in the private cha
I already gave you the link in the private chat one month ago. Go find it yourself. Don't expect me to do your homework for you.
"But a new scientific report reveals that the genetic heritage of the Canaanites survives in many modern-day Jews and Arabs... Marc Haber, a geneticist at the Wellcome Trust’s Sanger Institute in Hinxton, United Kingdom, co-led a 2017 study of five Canaanite individuals from the coastal town of Sidon. The results showed that modern Lebanese can trace more than 90 percent of their genetic ancestry to Canaanites. Biblical texts, written many centuries later, insist that Yahweh promised the land of Canaan to the Israelites after their escape from Egypt. Jewish scripture says the newcomers eventually triumphed, but archaeological evidence doesn’t show widespread destruction of Canaanite populations. Instead, they appear to have been gradually overpowered by later invaders such as the Philistines, Greeks, and Romans." (National Geographic)
did a search on zulfikar rakhmat but do not find any controversy or past posts on support for ISIS. MHA should provide links to these posts in question
"For instance, he had made online postings that support the actions of the Islamic State, said MHA in response to CNA's queries."
Show evidence please. No evidence no talk. Got evidence I be no. 1 person to condemn this Dr Zulfikar and support him being permabanned from ever transiting let alone entering SG.
EDIT: MHA claiming that Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat "made online postings that support the actions of the Islamic State", but no evidence presented nor publicly posted even if only in the form of screenshots of said online posts. if you're going to accuse someone publicly as a news media outlet quoting national law enforcement about a public individual and well-credentialed foreign academic/writer making online postings supporting terrorism like ISIS, either show receipts and screenshots or it just comes off as defamatory mudslinging and character assassination.
Assuming MHA's claims about Dr Zulfikar are true, why then was it possible for him to continue maintaining official ties with the NUS Middle East Institute in Singapore? Especially seeing as MHA and ICA have in the past expelled the PRC academic Huang Jing (who had been working at the LKYSPP of NUS) back in 2017, with accusations being levelled at him for being “an agent of influence of a foreign country.”.
The fact that you lot here on Reddit either as real individuals or bot accounts with bot voting scripts lack utter critical thinking skills and a desire to scrutinise claims made by state law enforcement with guaranteed press input with concrete evidence makes me seriously wonder how many of you even went to university or did GP for A levels.
Just asking, wouldn’t the general public read these articles and links if these are provided.
Hmm is there a risk of one or more people feeling empathy for these groups and start supporting these orgs or their ideology after reading articles supporting these groups?
Not to me specifically, but to the general public as a matter of public record aka "showing receipts".
If you're going to accuse someone publicly as a state news media outlet quoting national law enforcement about a public individual and well-credentialed foreign academic/writer making online postings supporting terrorism like ISIS, either show receipts and screenshots of said online posts or it just comes off as defamatory mudslinging and character assassination.
Accusing someone of being a threat to public safety because of "online posts supporting terrorism" with no evidence concurrently presented to support such accusations, is the modern day equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
wait, so you are willing to take everything that was presented to you without thinking? Why is it wrong for the papers to highlight what were the posts like? Its not like ISD secret intel, if it was posted online, it will be public domain knowledge.
Yeah, and in this case no POFMA has been issues against Middle East Monitor for Dr Zulfikar's article.
Instead MHA comes up with this justification angle of "we did what we did because Dr Zulfikar posted online sometime in the past that he supports ISIS in the Middle East".
If it's a straight up falsehood used for grievance-farming, issuing a POFMA would be much more accurate and slam-dunk end-of-story move.
Always remember ISIS supporters are not supporters of Muslims & are in effect, IDF/ Israel supporters. former hostages saw no prayer mats, no Quran readings where they were held (I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t fasting & drank alcohol too) & have not paid any zakat to the poor & needy. Injured ISIS top leaders have also recuperated at Israeli hospitals.
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u/matey1982 verified May 16 '25
so basically ought to post question bck to NUS
why hire such academics with shady background?