I was interrogated in Singapore twice for writing about Palestine – Middle East Monitor

In 2023, I experienced something I never expected in a country like Singapore. Not one, but twice, I was detained and interrogated at the Changi airport, not to violate any law, not for carrying suspicious articles, but for my work, an academic and journalist who writes in the affairs of the Middle East, a special Palestinian.

I am an Indonesian citizen. I grew up in Qatar due to my father’s labor relocation and completed my secondary and undergraduate education there. I later studied in the United Kingdom, and between 2022 and 2025, I lived and worked in South Korea as a research professor at the University of Foreign Studies of Busan. My writing has long focused on the Policy of the Middle East, with a constant interest in Palestine, a cause rooted in personal history, moral clarity and academic duty.

In February 2023, my wife and I were in transit in Singapore, flying back to Indonesia from South Korea. We had planned a quiet night duration, including a stop to try halal noodles in Tampines Mall. But instead of a peaceful scale, they stopped me in immigration and tasks to an isolated room next to the counter. My wife was tolerant of waiting near, confused and anxious.

After a brief wait, three men approached me, identifying themselves as Singapore security officers. They questioned me about my background, my travel history in the Middle East, and the most revealing, my academic and journalistic work. They took my phone and combed through their content. One of them referred to me as a “prolific writer”, a comment that made it clear that they had done a previous investigation into me before the meeting. Another asked: “Why do you write about the Middle East, especially Palestine?” They also pressed me about my views regarding the situation in the Middle East, suggested a deeper interest not only in what I had written, but in the Iro perspectives.

They never explicitly accused me of me or were wrong. But his fixation in my publications, and in my years living in the Middle East, was a clear indication that my intellectual work had caused his attention. Later, my wife told me that an officer had directly told him that they were questioning me due to my journalism. After interrogation hours, I was released and escorted to the exit door. We could never try the noodles, and we had to wait until morning for our connection flight. Before letting me go, an officer generates a farewell warning: “Don’t write about our meeting.”

I am writing about that now because such intimidation cannot run out of response.

Seven months later, in September 2023, it happened again. I was on a bus flight to yogyakarta through Singapore. Because the transfer was not automatic, I had to go through immigration to investigate my bags. At the time my passport scanned, I was marked and I did on one side once again. The interrogation this time was shorter, but the tone and focus were the same. Just when I returned in the morning to board my next flight, they marked me again to a special “special” immigration counter.

These were not isolated or accidental encounters. My name and my passport had clearly been red.

Ironically, I have professional ties with Singapore. I am affiliated with the Institute of the Middle East at the National University of Singapore, one of the country’s main academic institutions in matters of the Middle East. But that did not seem to import the security officers who questioned me. My intellectual contribution is nothing in the face of the suspicion of the State.

I have traveled to more than 40 countries. Like many Muslims and researchers focused on the Middle East, I have experienced scrutiny at airports, even once under the famous anti -terrorism law of Annex 7 of the United Kingdom at Manchester airport. But facing this treatment child in Singapore, a country that had visited several times in the past without problems, and the first country I traveled as a young student, was deeply disturbing.

The Singapore position in Palestine is account. While it is official supports a solution of two states and the express group on violence in the region, its foreign policy is strongly inclined towards Israel. Military cooperation between the two states is robust, including the acquisition of Israeli manufacturing weapons. As such, open criticism or Israel or public support for Palestinian rights can be silently discouraged within the strictly controlled public sphere of Singapore. For foreign citizens such as Myelf, even traveling through the airport may be enough to activate scrutiny.

This raises critical questions about freedom of expression and academic independence, not only within Singapore, but in a growing network of states that prioritize geopolitical alliances on basic rights. The chilling effect is real. After these experiences, I now avoid flights that travel through Singapore. Decline invitations to speak or participate in events there. I no longer feel safe traveling through a country that punishes intellectual research in the Middle East.

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We must ask: What son of global academic and journalistic space are we creating when states begin to punish people not for what they do, but for what they write? When security officers begin to cite their articles to justify a border interrogation, you know that it is not only profiled, but is being monitored by thought.

Journalists and academics must remain attentive. We must continue speaking the truth to power, especially when it brings together oppressed peoples such as the Palestinians. It is essential to continue challenging power through critical research and document the subtle and manifest forms in which restrictions on freedom of expression and dissent extend beyond national borders.

Singapore, meanwhile, must be responsible hero. If they were still a respected center for global transit, companies and academia, people cannot address their points of view. You cannot choose which intellectual conversations are allowed. And certainly cannot suppress writing in Palestine without revealing its own complicity in a much greater effort to silence that struggle.

Let’s be clear: Palestine is not a taboo. Palestine is not a crime. Writing about this should not make anyone a suspect.

I shouldn’t write about what happened to me at Changi airport. But silence is not an option.

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The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of the Middle East monitor.