A Muslim
civil society leader in Singapore resigned from his posts in two
charitable organisations on Monday after allegedly receiving
government pressure to curb his critical views.
In a post on his personal
blog Wednesday, Nizam Ismail explained why he decided to
quit as board director of the Association of Muslim Professionals
(AMP) and chairman of the Centre for Research on Islamic and Malay
Affairs (RIMA) effective earlier that Monday.
Nizam said that
AMP chairman Azmoon Ahmad called him on Saturday to say that he
received separate phone calls from two government ministers
expressing concern over Nizam's participation as a speaker
at next week’s May Day
protest at Hong Lim Park.
The protest,
organised by Gilbert Goh of transitioning,org, is to be a follow-up
to an earlier protest criticising the Singapore government’s top
range projection of a 6.9 million population by 2030.
The ministers were
also said to be concerned about Nizam's participation as a panelist
at a Youth Wing Youthquake
Seminar for the opposition Workers' Party and his critical
leanings on social media.
Azmoon relayed a
message that Nizam should “take it easy” and decline participation
from such activities, or else, the government would withdraw all
funding from AMP.
Nizam said that
Azmoon suggested Nizam “disassociate” himself from AMP if he were
to continue with the activities.
Saying he was
appalled by the alleged threats of withdrawal of funding from AMP
on account of activities he had done in his "personal capacity",
Nizam deplored what appeared to be "political reasons" behind
them.
"I could not, as a
matter of principle, see myself functioning as an activist in AMP
or RIMA’s Board in an imposed non-critical state, in return for
continued funding of AMP’s programs," Nizam said of his decision to
resign from the two organisations.
Nizam also alleged
that the latest incident was not the only attempt at influencing
AMP, which was established in 1991 as a non-partisan group to help
Malays and Muslims in Singapore.
State funding of
AMP’s programs were cut in the wake of a proposal in 2000 for a
collective community leadership and threats of funding cuts were
also made in reaction to a the group's proposal in 2012 for an
independent Community Forum, Nizam claimed.
"The readiness to
use the threat of withdrawal of funding when the State feels
displeased or threatened also ignores this important fact – that
these funds are being used to fund programs which benefit thousands
of beneficiaries – be they low-income families, youths at risks,
[and] students," he said.
"The interests of
these beneficiaries seem to be readily steamrolled," he added.
As of Thursday
evening, Nizam’s name had been removed from the AMP’s board of
directors’ page on the organisation’s website though his profile page was still live.
His name had also been removed from RIMA’s page.
AMP has not yet
replied to Yahoo! Singapore's request for
comment.