SINGAPORE - The year was 2015 and, like many teenagers, Hamzah (not his real name) would spend hours every day playing video games, including first-person shooters, in his room. The difference was that the 18-year-old considered this part of his prep work - alongside watching videos of beheading and hostages burned alive - to desensitise himself ahead of joining the...
Another youth, Saad, also shrugged off his father's warnings upon finding out that his son was enthralled by the teachings of former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.SINGAPORE - The year was 2015 and, like many teenagers, Hamzah would spend hours every day playing video games, including first-person shooters, in his room.
"What I did was trying to get mentally prepared, because I had made up my mind to join ISIS and fight alongside them." The story of how a young person in Singapore could become radicalised right under the nose of his immediate family is worrying, as there have been nine people below the age of 21 dealt with under the ISA since 2015.
It was a similar path for Aakeel, who, as a 16-year-old in 2014, began watching videos on ISIS and the Hamas militant group on YouTube, before getting sucked in by even more radical propaganda videos. Another youth, Saad, also shrugged off the warnings of his father who found out that his son was enthralled by the teachings of former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.The most brazen of them was Daniel, who in 2017 posted defaced images of President Halimah Yacob on social media and called on ISIS to behead her for being an apostate as the head of "infidel" Singapore.
However harmless the families felt the situation was, they could no longer deny the problem when officers from ISD intervened. They also explained to him that jihad does not necessarily mean fighting, but a spiritual struggle to be a better Muslim by doing good and avoiding evil. His case officers also took care of him when he was sick and ensured that he got treatment from a doctor.
Both Hamzah and Daniel spent two years in detention before they were released and placed on restriction orders. Daniel continues to serve out his restriction order.While the four of them are doing well to reintegrate into society, they continue to hold their past close to their chest, in fear of being stigmatised for having been radicalised before.
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