Zulfikar Mohamad Shariff still has vivid memories of the day he fled Singapore. 'No one apart from close relatives and friends knew I was leaving,' he says of the day he slipped across the border into neighbouring Malaysia.
Facing the prospect of arrest and indefinite imprisonment after months of intimidating threats by Singapore's notorious Internal Security Department (ISD), Mr Shariff decided in early July 2002 that it was time to get his family out.
'Two of my children are Malaysian citizens and one didn't have an international passport,' he says. 'So on July 9, 2002, he and I took a bus to the Woodlands border checkpoint and went through on the pretext that I was taking my son to meet with relatives in Johor Baru. When I reached Johor Baru I called home and told them I was safe.'
Although Mr Shariff wants to return to Singapore from his home in Melbourne, Australia, he's been told that if he does he will not only be facing three charges of criminal defamation, but will be prosecuted for sedition and contravening Singapore's Religious Harmony Act.
'I miss home,' Mr Shariff says. 'But sources within the government have informed me that I'll be incarcerated upon my return.'
Mr Shariff's fall out with the Singaporean government resulted from his involvement with Fateha, an online Muslim discussion group he set up with the help of two friends in 1999.