An 18-year-old teenager, identified as Nick Lee, has been detained in Singapore for allegedly using a violent online game to train for an attack on Muslims, mirroring the 2019 massacre in New Zealand.
Lee is accused of aspiring to carry out an attack on Muslims in Singapore, inspired by the white supremacist Brenton Tarrant’s deadly rampage in Christchurch, New Zealand, where 51 people were killed.
Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) stated that Lee aimed to conduct a similar Tarrant-style attack on a mosque in Singapore, using homemade guns, knives, and Molotov cocktails, and livestreaming the event.
According to ISD, Lee’s hatred towards Muslims began in 2023 after he encountered far-right propaganda online. He repeatedly watched Tarrant’s livestream of the New Zealand attack, idolizing him and role-playing as Tarrant in a violent online simulation game.
Lee identified himself as an “East Asian supremacist” and believed in the superiority of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese ethnicities. Although his attack plans were aspirational with no fixed timeline, there was no imminent threat identified, the ISD clarified.
Singapore has a tough stance on extremism, and concerns about youth radicalization have been raised, with a significant number of cases involving individuals under 20 years old.
