On 22 March 2026, Malaysian activist Dr Fadiah Nadwah Fakir crossed the Malaysia-Singapore border. The trip would be mostly business: she was to deliver a guest lecture at the university where she had recently received her doctorate. To her surprise, Dr Fadiah was refused entry to Singapore and turned back to Malaysia at the Woodlands Checkpoint. She was an undesirable visitor, according to the receipts she posted on her social media accounts. In her own words, the ordeal was "extremely outrageous and distressing". Given that her candidature at the National University of Singapore was uneventful, if not model, Dr Nadiah alleged her "deportation" signals the state's disapproval of her research interests in postcolonial theory.
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| Safe and nonpolitical medieval students and scholars drinking and gambling, from the Carmina Burana manuscript |
Prof Khoo Ying Hooi, an international relations expert regularly consulted by Singapore's The Straits Times for regional and Malaysian political analysis, has opined that this incident is proof that Singapore actively polices the boundaries of academics to restrict their legitimate activities within education, and away from political activism and advocacy. Such a pity, the prof sniffs, as this overlap is the "common" mode of academic expression in the region.
Dr Fadiah's online theatrics and performative outrage may play to her social media audience, but Prof Khoo's quiet piece presents a challenge that Home Affairs minister K Shanmugam cannot swat away easily: Was Singapore's action not just heavyhanded, but detrimental to academic freedom? Did striking Dr Fadiah also inadvertently hurt academic freedom and academic independence or autonomy, on which any functional democracy depends?
