MHA: 17-year-old secondary school student detained in Jan 2020 under ISA

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued a press release on Monday (10 Feb) about the detention of a male 17-year-old secondary school student since January 2020 under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

According to MHA, the student 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 —  Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has been labelled as a terrorist organisation — to behead her for supporting Singapore, which he viewed as an “infidel” state.

He had said to have been radicalised by a foreign online contact who introduced him to pro-ISIS social media groups in 2017.

According to MHA, the student gained access to what he believed was exclusive ISIS content through the groups and in his eyes, ISIS was a powerful group that was fighting for Islam and its use of violence against its opponents was therefore justified.

MHA said that despite efforts to steer him away from the radical path since 2017, 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, claimed MHA.

However, there are no signs that he had spread his pro-ISIS views to others around him.

MHA also announced the release of Abu Thalha bin Samad who was formerly arrested and issued with an Order of Detention (OD) for a period of two years from September 2017.

In Oct 2017, MHA said that he is a member of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and was deported to Singapore with the help from a regional government to deport him to Singapore where he was arrested under the ISA for his involvement in a terrorist organisation.

MHA said that he had shown good progress in his rehabilitation and was assessed to no longer pose a security threat requiring preventive detention.