Update on Cases Under the Internal Security Act

Detention of Singaporean Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) Supporter

1.     A male 17-year-old secondary school student was detained in January 2020 under the Internal Security Act (ISA). He was first investigated in September 2017 when he was only 15 years old, after he posted defaced images of President Halimah Yacob on social media and called on ISIS to behead her for supporting Singapore, which he viewed as an “infidel” state. He had been radicalised by a foreign online contact who introduced him to pro-ISIS social media groups in 2017. Through these groups, he gained access to what he believed was exclusive ISIS content.  In his eyes, ISIS was a powerful group that was fighting for Islam and its use of violence against its opponents was therefore justified.

2.     Despite efforts by MHA since 2017 to steer him away from the radical path, he remained a staunch supporter of ISIS. He was willing to assist ISIS in its online propaganda efforts, and undertake other activities if called upon by ISIS to do so. Even with the demise of ISIS’s so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq, he still believed in the terrorist group and its violent cause. However, there are no signs that he had spread his pro-ISIS views to others around him.

Release from Detention

3.     Abu Thalha bin Samad (aged 28), a former member of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), was released on a Restriction Order (RO) when his Order of Detention (OD) expired in September 2019. He had shown good progress in his rehabilitation and was assessed to no longer pose a security threat requiring preventive detention.