Legislative Levers to Strengthen Internal Security Department's Capacity Given Increase in Cases of Youths being Self-radicalised

8 Mr Murali Pillai asked the Minister for Home Affairs having regard to the recent cases of persons, particularly youths, being self-radicalised through the Internet posing imminent threats to the society and the associated difficulty in identifying such persons, whether any additional legislative measure should be introduced to allow the Internal Security Department to continue to play an effective role in keeping Singapore safe from terrorism.

The Minister of State for Home Affairs (Ms Sun Xueling) (for the Minister for Home Affairs): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) adopts a zero-tolerance approach towards radicalisation and any form of extremist ideology. The Internal Security Act (ISA) has been an effective tool for us to pre-emptively tackle such threats, evident from, among others, the arrests of three self-radicalised Singaporean youths and the foiling of their attack plans over the past two years.

In the online space, the Government has in place levers under the Broadcasting Act to disable access by Singapore users to websites that contain material that is objectionable on the grounds of public security. In addition, the Online Safety (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act, which has taken effect from 1 February 2023, further strengthened regulations under the Broadcasting Act to disable access to egregious content on social media services – including content instructing or advocating terrorism and violence.

During the MHA Committee of Supply debate in March 2022, then-Minister of State for Home Affairs, Mr Desmond Tan, announced that MHA was working with agencies to develop a framework that will tackle online criminal activity, including terrorism and content inciting violence in our community. This framework will complement the provisions under the Online Safety (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act and we will provide more information at an appropriate juncture.

Mr Speaker: Mr Murali Pillai.

Mr Murali Pillai (Bukit Batok): Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to commend the efforts of Internal Security Department (ISD) in identifying this particular youth that was arrested earlier this month and detained by the Minister under the powers vested in him in the ISA. Based on what has been announced, it is pretty clear that if not for the timely intervention of ISD, people would have been hurt and there could have even been more serious injuries, or even death, arising from him being at loose and wanting to espouse his thoughts.

My question is in relation to a point made by the hon Minister in the interview by the press. He said that he felt that there was still a need for legislative levers in relation to holistically dealing with this phenomenon of self-radicalised youths. So, may I just ask the hon Minister of State, what are the legislative levers that are being contemplated to deal with this phenomenon?

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his supplementary question. As I had mentioned in my main reply, we are currently looking at how we can work with agencies to develop a framework that will tackle online criminal activity and it will complement what has been amended in the Broadcasting Act and also the Online Safety (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act. We will be coming out, quite shortly, with more details of the proposed framework and the new legislative levers.