A former Singaporean religious teacher and his student have been placed under restriction orders for promoting extremism and undermining Singapore's secular laws by advocating "armed jihad" against "infidels", the Home Ministry has said.
Murad Mohd Said, 46, has been placed under Restriction Orders (ROs) under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for spreading exclusivist and extremist teachings that promote violence, making him the first person who was once accredited as a religious teacher to be issued with an order under the ISA.
He taught that it was compulsory to kill apostates, defined broadly to include non-believers, Sufis, Shites and Muslims who have renounced Islam or disregarded texts and rulings from the Quran and Sunnah, Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday.
A person issued with an RO has to adhere to several conditions and restrictions such as refraining from travelling out of Singapore or from changing address and employment.
Said also taught that Muslims were allowed to defend themselves by waging "armed jihad" against "infidels who persecuted them", it said.
Murad also encouraged his students to withdraw from Singapore's secular society, disregard secular laws, and adhere to the rulings of Shariah law instead, the ministry said.
His student Razali Abas, a 56-year-old technician, met him in 2012 and started attending his classes.
Abas, was arrested in September last year and placed on an RO in October.
Abas was placed under a RO to "prevent him from continuing his downward spiral into extremism", the statement said.
Over time, Abas became convinced that it was legitimate to kill those he felt were oppressors of Islam, it said
He began to seek out individuals with militant-looking profiles on Facebook, seeing them as "heroes" who were making sacrifices he could not make himself, the statement said.
It said their posts also reinforced their belief in armed violence and his admiration and support for terrorist groups such as the al Qaeda.
The statement added that Murad's binary "us versus them" worldview and violent teachings, which he propagated to his students and followers, could have led them to develop extremist views, as well as lead to inter and intra-faith tensions.
His statements on the primacy of Shariah law over secular laws also undermine Singapore's secular nation-state system, the ministry said.
Murad is no longer accredited as a freelance religious teacher by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS).
Last May, the MUIS cancelled Murad's accreditation for propagating segregationist ideologies. However, Murad continued to propagate his radical views online.
It is mandatory for Islamic religious teachers to be accredited, according to the statement.
While Murad was issued an RO on December 5, Abas was placed under the order last year.
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