Issuance of Account Restriction Direction and Disabling Direction Under the Online Criminal Harms Act to Deal With Social Media Posts by Zulfikar Bin Mohamad Shariff

1. The Singapore Police Force (“SPF”) has issued an Account Restriction Direction (“ARD”) and a Disabling Direction (“DD”) under the Online Criminal Harms Act 2023 (“OCHA”) to deal with social media posts by Australian national Zulfikar bin Mohamad Shariff (“Zulfikar”).

2. Zulfikar renounced his Singapore Citizenship in 2020, and is now an Australian Citizen. He was detained under the Internal Security Act in 2016 for his promotion of terrorism and online glorification of the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. His actions had contributed to the radicalisation of at least two other Singaporeans. He had also called on Muslims to reject the constitutional, secular, democratic state in favour of an Islamic state governed by Syariah law. He believed that violence should be used to achieve this goal if necessary.

3. Zulfikar, a foreigner, has repeatedly continued to stir up discontent within the local Malay/Muslim community against the Chinese community in Singapore. He has incited feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will and hostility against, contempt for and ridicule of different racial and religious groups in Singapore. For example, in a TikTok video posted on 19 Jun 2025, Zulfikar falsely alleged that Malay/Muslims were forced to move away from Islam and assimilate into the Chinese community in Singapore. There are also other videos which are similarly inflammatory. The Government has received numerous feedback from members of the public, including several police reports, that Zulfikar’s posts threaten racial and religious harmony in Singapore.

4. The Ministry of Home Affairs and SPF assess that overall, Zulfikar’s online content are offences under Section 17F(3) of the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act 1990. Therefore, SPF has issued an ARD to TikTok to disable Zulfikar’s TikTok account and a DD to Meta to disable Zulfikar’s Facebook page. This would stop Zulfikar’s accounts/pages from further communicating in Singapore, and harming our racial and religious harmony.

5. SPF has also initiated Police investigations into Zulfikar given his egregious conduct.

6. The Singapore Government takes a very serious view of threats to our racial and religious disharmony, including from foreigners, and will not hesitate to act against them.