Ahmad Zahid: Students returning from Syria will be held for questioning but not arrested

KUALA LUMPUR: Students returning from Syria will be held for questioning and investigation on their arrival here but will not be arrested, Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told the Dewan Rakyat today.
He said this is to ensure that Malaysian students did not go to Syria to learn about terrorism instead of studying in their respective fields.
However, he said the students will not be arrested or held up for long.
"We will investigate and question them and if they are not involved in militant activity, we won't hold them for long.
"The government is not so cruel to just arrest the students, who return to Malaysia from Syria," he said in reply to Datuk Johari Abdul (PKR-Sg Petani), who asked whether students returning from Syria will be arrested.
Ahmad Zahid said there were 63 Malaysians who are still in Syria while seven have returned.
From the 63 Malaysians, there are four children aged between one to 10, eight women and 51 men.
He said that from the seven that returned, six have been detained and one is at large.
Ahmad Zahid also said the seven who returned included one ex-Internal Security Act (ISA) detainee, but did not clarify whether the ex-detainee was among those detained here.
"The government fears that the ex-ISA detainees went there to attain (terrorism) knowledge, then return to recruit Malaysians to conduct militant activities here," he said.
He reiterated that 75% of the Islamic State (IS) militants or members were recruited through social media and the young people without strong religious or family background are their easy targets.
Stressing yet again the importance of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) that was recently passed, Ahmad Zahid said the government wants to conduct awareness campaigns of the Act at institutions, universities and mosques.