By: Murray Hunter
Singapore, which has long been the target of academics, historians, jurists, journalists, and international NGOs over its draconian Internal Security Act (ISA), has switched gears from surveilling Communists to Islamists, raising concerns that the government is overreaching as it did in going after leftist.
The government’s use of the ISA has long led to roundups of opponents and critics of the ruling People’s Action Party, which has ruled the country for 70 years in an atmosphere where press criticism is not allowed. Singapore hosted the world’s longest serving political prisoner, Chia Thye Poh, who spent 32 years in confinement, five years longer than Nelson Mandela.
Over the past 25 years, Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD), the primary administrator of the ISA has changed focus from anti-communism to anti-terrorism, with more emphasis on using the act for preventative detention, with tacit community support.
Singaporeans are being arrested in the middle of the night from their homes, at border crossings, or snatched, rendition style, off the streets, quasi-extrajudicially, without the right to any transparent legal due process…