Transcript of media doorstop by Mr K Shanmugam, Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security & Minister for Home Affairs and Mr Desmond Lee, Minister of Education, on detention of youths under the Internal Security Act

Reporter: What comments do you have on the latest actions against these few youths under ISA?

Senior Minister: In the past three months, ISD have detained three young boys under the ISA. Three different cases, but all three planned to attack in Singapore. One would have done it during the June holidays if ISD had not arrested him in time. So, just in time. He was going to do it.

First case relates to a 15-year-old. We don’t mention names if they are under 18 years old. So this boy, 15 years old, Secondary Four student. He was reading a lot of extremist content and he planned to carry out a mass casualty attack in Singapore, in support of ISIS.

So he researched on homemade explosives, he formed online chat groups, he tried to recruit others. So quite extensive.

Second case, the 19-year-old boy, Tan Jun Jie.

He was again exposed to a lot of online extremist content from foreign preachers. He started four years ago. He read a lot of pro-ISIS and other radical content. He considered himself to be a member of ISIS by the start of this year, 2026, and he made two attack plans -one targeted SAF officers at Sembawang Air base, the other targeted LGBTQ students in his own school.

He also attempted to conduct cyberattacks against websites of Muslim organisations which he thought were deviant.

The third case, the youngest, 14-year-old boy, Secondary Two. Radicalised by what we call, Composite Violent Extremism (CoVE). This was through online First-Person Shooter games on Roblox and consuming violent content online.

And he wanted to conduct mass-casualty stabbing attack at his secondary school and he wanted to use a knife from home.

He wrote out a – quite advanced – 21-page attack manifesto. It set out attack plans, choice of weapons, attack targets: non-Muslim teachers and students in his school. Quite serious and quite advanced in his plans.

He was going to livestream his attack, pledge allegiance to ISIS, and then take his own life.

He was arrested just weeks before the June school holidays because he had planned to attack during the holidays.

Since 2015, last 11 years, a total of 23 young people below the age of 20 – 20 or below – have been dealt with ISD. So you see, young people, younger and younger persons, are getting radicalised.  

We see similar trends overseas too. Last month, in Australia, a 13-year-old boy was charged. He was planning a mass attack at a primary school. In Philippines, there was a school shooting by two young persons – 14 and 15 years old, three students were killed.

We have strict laws against guns and explosives, effectively enforced, but knives are simple and easy to get. 


Reporter: So what can we do to address this online radicalisation of youths?

Senior Minister: We, MHA, working with MDDI and other agencies, we take a lot of action. We block websites, but you know, it is impossible to block everything.

Tackling harmful, extremist content  has to be an effort that everyone is involved in.

Family and friends are actually in the best position to detect possible radicalisation by someone near to them.

In all three cases the boys had shared their extremist views with those around them. One added his family members and friends into chat groups where he spread pro-ISIS content.

Another shared ISIS videos with his friends and schoolmates.

So we need the public, parents, to stay vigilant, safeguard children. Whenever there is such harmful online content being shared, you need to click and say, “Look, what do I do about it?”

And you know it takes less and less time for people to become radicalised and decide to become violent.

That is why it is extremely important to report early, and that allows for intervention early. And you know what, you are actually helping that person because we – ISD, MHA – can prevent them from harming themselves and harming others, and in early stages of radicalisation, we can arrange for measures like counselling. We don’t even need to arrest them or detain them. We can do it, without detaining through counselling. So, I really encourage everyone to do your part, our part, to keep Singapore safe.

Minister Desmond: Radicalisation can affect anyone, regardless of age or background.  

At MOE, we are very concerned by the growing number of children and young people who have been radicalised online. We are also deeply concerned for the three youths who have been radicalised in these recent cases.

While ISD will focus on their rehabilitation, MOE will support their education while they are in detention. 

We will work together to try to help them recover and move on positively and purposefully.  

I know that parents, teachers and students will be concerned about this trend of youths who are falling victim to online radicalisation. Some will also be concerned about school safety, as some of these affected youth were prepared to harm others in the community or even within school.  

MOE will continue to work closely with MHA to tackle the challenge of youth online radicalisation, through (a) education, (b) prevention as well as (c) emergency response.  

On the education front, we already incorporate relevant content from Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) across the curriculum to help students discern and reject harmful online content, including extremist ideologies. We will see how to further strengthen this.  

On the prevention front, we have been working closely with ISD to run counter-radicalisation outreach activities, workshops and exercises for school principals, teachers, school counsellors and student welfare officers, so that they can spot warning signs in their students early and act swiftly. 

Our students who are Peer Support Leaders also help to look out for their fellow schoolmates, and students are encouraged to speak to a trusted adult, teacher or school leader if they are worried about a friend or classmate. 

In fact, one of the recent cases was reported by someone in school who picked up the signs of radicalisation and alerted authorities. We are encouraged by this as it shows that our counter-radicalisation efforts are bearing fruit on the ground. And we will do more on this front. 

An important part of prevention work involves tackling harmful online content that can lead to children being radicalised. The authorities already block access to terrorist sites, and our schools block harmful content on students' Personal Learning Devices. MOE supports what MHA and MDDI are doing to better safeguard Singaporeans, especially children, from harmful content. 

Even as MOE strengthens our education and prevention efforts, we also need to be prepared for emergency response. 

So we have been working with our schools and Institutes of Higher Learning to run workshops, drills and exercises to prepare for potential threats that may come from within or outside the school, so that everyone is familiar with what to do if a crisis does arise. We will continue to enhance our emergency response to address new and evolving threats. 

Ultimately, our strongest defence is our collective vigilance and preparedness. We will continue to work closely with ISD, community partners and parents to look out for children and young people who may be vulnerable to extremist influence, and to provide guidance and support to them.


Reporter: The 14-year-old was arrested only about a few weeks before his planned attack. You mentioned just in time. How concrete and operational was his plan, and how close was Singapore to an actual mass casualty attack? Does MHA consider intervention at this stage sufficiently early, or warning signs should have been detected sooner? And for Minister Desmond, this 14-year-old, as mentioned in the release, had listed teachers and schoolmates as targets partly because of how he felt in schools. So did the school know earlier that he felt bullied and was consuming these violent content, or you know, was it being raised that he was under pressure from teachers and other students. And how will MOE review whether existing safeguards could have detected him earlier?

Senior Minister: On your first question, he had gotten quite close to carrying out his plans. It is worrying, but every case is worrying – I've said this many times before. ISD and MHA have got to get it right every single time. The would-be attacker needs to get it right only once. A few weeks, and he had planned. Part of the framework is that people are getting radicalised much faster, and it's really not possible to always pick it up at the beginning, which is why I emphasise the importance of family and friends. The moment you see something not quite right, please report. Don't just leave it to ISD and the police, because you know, we try our best, and so far, every single time, we have been successful in intervening. But don't take that for granted. This was close.

Minister Desmond: I mentioned earlier that in this case, we were fortunate that someone in the school picked up this case and reported to the authorities. I think that's important because it shows that our school community, educators, counsellors, peer support leaders, students, and other people in the community, in the school environment, having undergone some of these workshops, having been given some training, having participated in these drills, learning some of this in their CCE lessons, being very mindful about telltale signs that may suggest that a friend, the student, the classmate, the loved one is falling sway under the influence of extremist ideologies that they should report in order to help and to protect these individuals from harming themselves and harming other people. We need to do more on this front. I mentioned earlier that prevention, education, and contingency and planning are all important pillars, but ultimately we need everybody to play their part in order to keep our school environment safe, and keep Singapore safe.


Reporter: So do you think such cases will have an impact on the Malay community? You know, the students in schools, people at workplaces. And secondly, you know, in many of the cases involving youth radicalisation, social media is where they found the content, right? So is a social media ban the solution to this?

Senior Minister: Let's take your first question, which is a very important question. So you ostracise or look at the Malay community with fear and suspicion - what happens? Is that going to make Singapore a better place? Is it going to make it a safer place? Since the 9/11 attacks in 2001 – 25 years, quarter of a century – that sort of thing has happened in some countries abroad, where the Muslim population is looked at with suspicion and fear. Has it made them safer, has it made them a better place? For 25 years, our mantra has been, and we have been successful in telling people, those who want to do you harm are a very small extremist minority. The majority are law-abiding Singaporeans. They are the same as us, and you don't draw artificial lines. The moment you draw these lines, that's when it becomes self-fulfilling. And we have been working very hard to build the bonds between the communities, make sure our Malay Muslim Singaporeans feel the same as everybody else, you know, in every aspect of society and life, and for Singaporeans of all races, religions – Chinese, Indians, others – to recognise that we are all one, and we are one together in this. If we go down that route of looking at somebody else with suspicion based on skin colour or religion or race, we are asking for trouble. We are a very small place, and in this small place, we either survive together in a small boat, as one Singapore, or we are all in trouble. So let's make sure we don't let a few radicalised individuals poison the whole atmosphere. And it's important for the majority community, Chinese, and the other Singaporeans, to make sure we continue to adopt a total overall perspective and make sure our Malay Muslim Singaporeans feel as part of the one community, part of the brotherhood, sisterhood.


Reporter: Given that two out of three of the attacks were targeting schools specifically, will there be any stepped-up security measures at schools? And in terms of the drills that you mentioned as well at schools, how will MOE balance this atmosphere of vigilance with also making sure that the students are happy and enjoying their time in school?

Senior Minister: You know, schools are open spaces. You can't turn every school into a garrison or a cantonment. Then it won't feel like a school. And I've made the point about public buildings too in the past. Singapore, if you want the majority of people to feel comfortable, confident, you have to have a balance between security and also free movement. People want to live without having to go through a whole series of restrictions. You can't turn Singapore into a garrison. You can't turn schools into a garrison. You can't turn public buildings into garrisons. So you have the ISD, you have the Police, you have to have a vigilant society that looks out for each other, looks out for some things that are not quite right, but at the same time, you know, we have to accept that there is only so much you can do in terms of physical security. And then on top of that, of course, within schools and within other places, you train people to be alert and, you know, understand security.

Minister Desmond: I agree with SM. It is very natural when you have something like this happen. People's instinct is: let's tighten up, let's put perimeter fences, let's do 100% checks, let's go around and check every bag, you know, have metal detectors and so on. That cannot be the main kind of approach that we take when it comes to this. As I said, there are multiple layers of vigilance, of training, of contingency planning, and even on the security side, we have measures in place –  Physical measures with CCTVs, and our security staff in our schools and institutes of higher learning have some training, to look out for matters of concern or people of concern, and they can do selective bag checks and other checks where necessary. But schools are places where people learn. They spark the joy of learning. There are places where people must feel comfortable learning, and certainly not every institute of higher learning is a gated, closed community. There are open campuses where we have people coming in and out, and free flow of ideas, where they study. So we want to make sure that we strike the right balance and put in place the right measures through getting people more aware of what they need to look out for, and strengthening this overall community of vigilance, so that we look out for one another, care for one another, and take the necessary steps to protect the community.


Reporter: SM, if I could just jump back to that point about youths encountering dangerous content online, leading to their self-radicalisation, do you think a social media ban is a solution to it?

Senior Minister: Number of approaches have been tried in other countries. Social media bans have been imposed in Australia, UK has discussed it, France Parliament has looked at it, with varying degrees of effectiveness. I know MDDI (Ministry of Digital Development and Information) has been speaking publicly about what can be done to protect our young people, not just from extremist online content, but also the harmful effects of social media on young people and their brain development, and their psychological development is, I think, reasonably well-known. It's becoming quite well researched, and it is something that how to deal with it – whether a ban is the best way or some other way – this is a matter that MDDI is looking at. But harmful extremist content, when we come across it, we block it. But as I said, in today's world, it's not possible to block everything. One of them got radicalised through Roblox and playing violent stuff, and then consuming other content.