S'pore Muslims call for religious teachers' registration

Singapore's Malay-Muslim community leaders have called for stricter norms for registration of religious teachers amid growing concerns over radicalisation in the country, media reports said.
The leaders want all Asatizah (Islamic preachers) to be registered with the Asatizah Recognition Scheme (ARS), started in 2005 to help Muslims to assess and recognise qualified religious teachers, The Sunday Times reported.
According to media reports, this wasdiscussed during a closed-door dialogue yesterday between Malay-Muslim leaders, Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim and Minister for Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli as part of regular engagements with the community.
About 80 per cent of Muslim religious teachers are currently accredited under the scheme, which is run by the Asatizah Recognition Board and Singapore Islamic Scholars and Religious Teachers Association.

Many community leaders said making the scheme mandatory would be a progressive and pro-active step.
Earlier this week, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) highlighted the importance of ARS, in the wake of an announcement that four Singaporeans were dealt with under the Internal Security Act for supporting Islamic State extremists.

Two Singaporeans were detained under the Act after they made plans to travel to Syria to fight for the terrorist group, said the Ministry of Home Affairs on Friday.
The other two Singaporeans were issued restriction orders, which do not allow any one of them to change home address, joband travel.

Since January last year, eight Singapore citizens have been detained under the Internal Security Act for terror activities.
Singapore has so far detained 18 Singaporeans and four Bangladeshi nationals and put 24 Singaporeans are on restriction orders. All were related to ISIS, according to media reports.