Singapore detains student accused of embracing far-right extremism

SINGAPORE — 

An 18-year-old Singapore pupil who was radicalized by convulsive far-right extremism online and who idolized the gunman down deadly attacks connected 2 mosques successful New Zealand has been detained nether the Internal Security Act, the authorities said.

Nick Lee Xing Qiu, identified arsenic an "East Asian supremacist," envisioned starting a "race war" betwixt Chinese and Malays successful Singapore, the Internal Security Department (ISD) said successful connection issued connected Monday.

"At the constituent of his arrest, Lee's onslaught ideations were aspirational and helium had nary timeline to transportation them out," the ISD said, adding investigations into his online contacts had not revealed immoderate imminent threats to Singapore.

Lee has been detained since December nether the ISA, which allows suspects to beryllium held for up to 2 years without trial.

The ISD said Lee recovered Islamophobic and far-right extremist contented connected societal media successful 2023, and past began actively searching for specified content. It said helium idolized the gunman who killed 51 radical successful 2 mosques successful Christchurch successful 2019, role-playing arsenic him successful an online simulation.

"Lee aspired to transportation retired attacks against Muslims successful Singapore with like-minded, far-right individuals that helium conversed with online," the ISD said.

Lee is the 3rd Singaporean younker with far-right extremist ideologies to beryllium dealt with nether the ISA, the section said, noting far-right extremism was a increasing interest globally.

"Youths whitethorn beryllium much susceptible to specified ideologies and whitethorn gravitate toward the consciousness of belonging and individuality that far-right movements look to provide," the ISD said.