REACH (Telegram) 5 -  What are your thoughts on the annual report on terrorism by the ISD? What more can Singapore do to combat the threats of terrorism and self-radicalisation?

(SK)

26 Jul 2024 (10am - 7pm)

REACH (Telegram)

REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 9:47 AM]

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REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 10:00 AM]

📢 Topic📢

On 25 Jul (Thursday), Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) said in its annual report that the terrorism threat in Singapore has increased since the Israel-Hamas war, with the conflict sparking more acts of violence worldwide. ISD also reported that there has been more anti-Singapore rhetoric on social media, with some regional netizens perceiving Singapore to be pro-Israel.

💬 What are your thoughts on the annual report on terrorism by the ISD? What more can Singapore do to combat the threats of terrorism and self-radicalisation?

📌 Anti-Singapore sentiments

In its report, ISD said, "There has been an uptick in anti-Singapore sentiments on social media, among regional netizens who perceive Singapore to be pro-Israel".

ISD also said some regional extremist elements took issue with Singapore’s contribution to Operation Prosperity Guardian, which is an international maritime security force formed to respond to attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels against shipping in the Red Sea.

Following this contribution, ISD said there were social media posts urging attacks against Singapore using bombs and rockets, and calling for the Republic to be destroyed and wiped out.

📌 Regional threat of terrorism

ISD also noted that Islamist terrorism remains at the forefront of the global terrorism threat landscape, in particular through ISIS. 

ISD also said that ISIS remains the primary threat actor in Southeast Asia too, where there have been ISIS-linked or inspired attacks and foiled plots. A example of this would be the attack on a police station in Malaysia by a 21-year-old inspired by extremist ideology, which left 2 police officers dead.

📌 Threat of terrorism financing in Singapore

ISD said the Israel-Hamas conflict has been exploited by terror elements for terrorism financing purposes. 

Even though there were no prosecutions of terrorism financing offences in Singapore in the past 12 months, the country remains a potential source of funds for terrorists and terrorist organisations abroad, said ISD.

ISD said Singaporeans need to be vigilant about the avenues through which they donate aid. It added that those hoping to donate should do so through charities such as the Red Cross and the Rahmatan Lil Alamin Foundation.

📌 Threat of self-radicalisation

ISD said that self-radicalisation continues to be the primary driver of the terror threat in Singapore.

Since 2015, 52 self-radicalised individuals – 40 Singaporeans and 12 foreigners – have been issued with orders under the Internal Security Act (ISA). Among them are 13 Singaporean youths aged 20 or younger. ISD has dealt with three such cases since July last year, with all issued Restriction Orders.

This underscores the radicalising risk that foreign extremist narratives can pose to Singapore’s own national security and social harmony, said the ISD.

👉https://str.sg/FQcz

👉https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/terrorism-threat-elevated-renewed-israel-palestine-conflict-singapore-also-affected-isd-4503686

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G, [26/7/2024 11:12 AM]

😂 The way today's topic is phrased.. very bait like. 

Any response that appears even mildly contrary to the good job of ISD can be seen as terrorism support. Then ISD will come to the contributors' homes to arrest them 

😂

G, [26/7/2024 11:14 AM]

I better say something positive now before I get on their blacklist 

GREAT JOB ISD! 👏👏👏

Many applause for you!

REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 12:14 PM]

Dear Contributors

We want to HEAR MORE from you! 

💬 What are your thoughts on the annual report on terrorism by the ISD? What more can Singapore do to combat the threats of terrorism and self-radicalisation?

Megan 😊

Adam, [26/7/2024 12:17 PM]

ISD watching this honeypot group

REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 2:05 PM]

📢 Topic📢

Jun Ming, [26/7/2024 2:12 PM]

Singapore don't care about Israel or hamas or whatsoever. Singapore just anti violence

Jun Ming, [26/7/2024 2:14 PM]

For donation aid how can one observe and donate correctly so they don't donate to the wrong organisation? Especially YouTube have a lot of such donations advertisment

Jun Ming, [26/7/2024 2:15 PM]

Malaysia is anti Israel so of I go to Malaysia and someone happens to ask me to donate...

LCL (Danny 心), [26/7/2024 2:29 PM]

1. Being a small and openly connected Country, Singapore is vunlerable to 2 types of threats - External and Internal threat.

There are many threats we need to be vigilant and safeguard against :- Economic threat (eg. de-Globalisation, decoupling, Protectionism, Isolationism) etc; Kinetic Threat arising from Geopolitical tension, Extremism; Global Climate threat, etc.

2. The purview of ISD are Kinetic threat - and specifically Internal Threat, Radicalisation and Extremism working with other internal Security Organisations and foreign internal security organisations - to protect Singapore from such Kinetic Threats.

LCL (Danny 心), [26/7/2024 2:50 PM]

3. Internal Threat - are affected by 2 factors - External Global events and Internal Racial, Religious, Social harmony and even Political and Economical disharmony -- fuel and propagated by the pervasiveness of social media that can permeate digitally savvy citizens.

(无行，无极，尽虚空遍法界）- Virtual, Infinite omnipresence and permeable.

4. The most pertinent threats rearing the head currently are :

a. Israel-Hamas and Axis proxies war (External Global events that reverbate through the Globe)

b. challenging our internal religious and racial harmony as the war escalate and prolong - with no guarantee of resolution in sight in the Middle East.

5. Actually what happen in Gaza - has nothing to do with Singapore - being such a faraway place and being over territorial dispute that should not concern Singapore - as it is up to the disputing parties to settle.

6. But what ripple through our Society is the "religious factor" - specifically "the historical various Abrahamic religious factions - unable to mutually accomodate each other's religious worship".

7. It is this factor -- that have challenge our internal racial and religious harmony - though by far and large, our religious reconciliation committee comprise of the religious leaders of various faiths have keep all the faiths on even keel - though external events threaten to unravel the underlying tensions.

8. Notice in social settings, people of various races and faiths are relatively calm, interact with one another in social settings - without uneasiness and social tensions - this is a good sign.

LCL (Danny 心), [26/7/2024 3:10 PM]

9. But ISD reports is not so comforting - as it has discovered hostile intention against Singapore in social media - instigated by Islamic extremists to attack Singapore.

a. This is done by radicalising individual to be internal lone wolves to act in violence or recruit similar value individuals to do coordinated attack in our soil or go abroad to join the Middle East fight.

b. Infiltrating foreign individuals into our shores to commit violence.

10. The Islamic extremists justification is that we are friendly to Israel, we join the Allies effort to coordinate the protection of sea lanes and commercial ships in Gulf of Aden and the Red sea.

But this Islamic extremists fail to acknowlege - that we are a neutral party that stand on the rule of law for eg. :-

a. We support UN 2 State solutions - but must ensure both Palestinians and Israel the right of existence

b. We provide humanitarian aids to Palestinians in Gaza and air drop the aids

c. We condemn Hamas atrocities on civilians and take hostage, and at the same breath vote against Israel forces killing of civilians

d. We hosted Palestine officers in Singapore and train them on governance administrative service.

10. Such Islamic extremist overt hostile development against us in social media - pose a security threat to us and regardless of all race and religions, our people should be vigilance to watch out for any hostile activities taking place in our Community and Society - and immediately report it to the Authorities if any suspicious activities are taking place.

Only through Community efforts, can we detect early hostile activities - and stop it at its bud before it happens.

11. Of course, ISD intelligence gatherings with foreign security organisations, regular surveillance, digital surveillance and defence will be very important to sniff out hostile activities that are festering and take proactive actions.

---

LCL (Danny 心), [26/7/2024 3:29 PM]

12. Another unexpected new threat that emerge from the Israel-Hamas war as well as the development of "far right" ideologies (from a dormant 19th century nationalism) - originating from the West are rearing its head --- unfortunately is taking the same route --- by using social media to propagate their values and instigating violence.

13. ISD report cited examples of such incidents in Singapore whereby lone wolves are attracted to such far right ideologies - and has been radicalised - but fortunately being discovered early by ISD and taken action to prevent violence incident in Singapore.

This will inevitably stretch ISD resources - as they not only conduct surveillance on Islamic extremists, and now have to allocate resources to scan far right extremists.

14. Hence all the more, all of our populations need to be united - and not create unnecessary trouble and distract our security organisations who are busy with tackling external threats and internal radicalisation --- that are posing very real kinetic threat within our Community.

15. Singapore land mass, a little red dot - is indeed very small and population density are very compact with no big hinterland for buffer.

Any untoward incident, can have very devastating physical, psychological and social impact - as our population live so close together.

16. Looking forward, the coming years and decades will not be easy years for us - because geopolitical tensions, economic challenges such as global inflation, decoupling, trade tension, global climate and environmental threat, Middle East religious tension etc --- will be extremely challenging.

17. Singapore will need all our best people in the Cabinets, Parliaments, Civil Service, Social Organisation, Business, Community Leaders, Religious Leaders at the helm - to tackle all the External and Internal challenges --- because they can really pose an existential threat to all of us.

LCL (Danny 心), [26/7/2024 3:42 PM]

18. All is needed, is one slip, and a kinetic threat unravel - then the physical damage, psychological impact - will unravel our social fabric -- and it will take a long time to recover.

19. Hence we need to do well in all our 6 pillars in Total Defense to :-

a. Stay United

b. Identify any threats early

c. Tackle it and nip it in the bud before it happens

d. And if unfortunately if any kinetic threat occurs (even low level intensity ones) occur - muster all our 6 pillars Total Defense to recover quickly - and not let our social fabric unravel to the points that turn into chaos.

20. Hence, our 6 pillars of Total Defense :--

i. Military Defense - strong and capable SAF and Home Team

ii. Civil Defense - well prepared and well trained civil defense system 

iii. Economic Defense - resilient, diversified and reliable economic and financial system

iv. Social Defense - a cohesive, united, resilient, inclusive, understanding and tolerant communities

v. Psychological Defense - informed, selfless and supportive citizenry

vi. Digital Defense - secure, resilient and reliable digital infrastructure

should be sharpen and ready at all time - to protect our population from whatever threats that come our way in this very uncertain times.

REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 4:04 PM]

📢 Topic📢

REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 5:10 PM]

Dear Contributors

We want to HEAR MORE from you! 

💬 What are your thoughts on the annual report on terrorism by the ISD? What more can Singapore do to combat the threats of terrorism and self-radicalisation?

Megan 😊

REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 6:04 PM]

📢 Topic📢

LCL (Danny 心), [26/7/2024 6:11 PM]

Of all the pillars, Digital Defense will form the 1st line of defense against radicalization and extremism.

As radical ideas will likely to come from social media and social communication platform.

Hence a very solid digital defense need to be in place - and it will be our very important 1st line of defense.

REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 6:45 PM]

Dear Contributors,

⏰ We will be closing the chat in 15 minutes ⏰

Thank you very much for being part of our Telegram chat and participating actively.

Goodnight!

Megan 😊

LCL (Danny 心), [26/7/2024 6:51 PM]

1. To scan a large mass of text, data, image, voice, video on radicalisation and extremism, AI will be a game changer - by exploiting Natural Language Processing, Machine Languagge, Large Language Model, Computer Vision, Sentimental Analysis etc --- and also should include foreign language conversion to English language --- in case radical views are communicated in foreign languages.

2. This will enhance productivity many times - to relieve human surveillance of vast amount of data - that will be very taxing.

G, [26/7/2024 6:59 PM]

At this rate, perhaps it's timely that SG starts a new ministry: 

Ministry of truth. Their job will be to create narratives and ensure that only those narratives are the truth, and only those narratives are propagated. 

Anything contrary to those narratives will be flagged as dangerous. And anyone subscribing to those contrary narratives are enemies of SG and will be punished with the full might of the ISD and the law, and need to be out through reeducation. 

SG already took the first step to this ministry creation with POFMA.

REACH Singapore, [26/7/2024 7:01 PM]

Dear Contributors

We will be closing the chat for today.

Thank you very much for being part of our Telegram chat and participating actively.

Goodnight!

Megan 😊

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