Prime Minister Wong raised the alarm, confirming the fears of the experts. Young people are the “most valuable target” of fundamentalist propaganda, from Isis to al-Qaeda. The problem also affects Christians, as shown by the indoctrination case of a 16-year-old boy who wanted to attack two mosques.
Singapore () – The alarm launched yesterday by the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lawrence Wong, confirms the fears expressed by many sectors: the inhabitants of the city-state, especially young people, are a “valuable target” for groups terrorists, increasingly active in indoctrination and recruitment. The privileged instrument, in its various forms and possibilities, is the Internet.
This was stated by Wong himself in his speech during the annual event of the Religious Rehabilitation Group. This is an initiative involving experts and volunteers from the Muslim religion whose objective is to rehabilitate people who have been drawn into the orbit of Islamic fundamentalism -although not only that- and for this reason they are serving prison sentences.
Indeed, another of the objectives is to anticipate indoctrination by warning about the risks that this entails on a personal and social level, the latter element that should not be underestimated. Because, on the one hand, extremist and terrorist movements continue to maintain an active local presence, and therefore it is very necessary to work in a geographical area with a Muslim majority, although at the same time it is oriented towards development and well-being that uses methods and parameters global. On the other hand, these groups can operate with virtually no interference because the population is little aware that they exist.
We are talking about movements and organizations with terrorist and destabilization purposes. Among them are the self-proclaimed Islamic State and al-Qaeda, which remain active in the region and have never stopped insisting that South and Southeast Asia constitute the easternmost regions of a future global caliphate.
The use of increasingly sophisticated and popular systems, based on social platforms, makes the propaganda more extensive and insistent and, at the same time, the controls are more complex. “This has not only facilitated the spread of extremist material, but has also accelerated the radicalization process, reducing it to months or even weeks,” Minister Wong said.
The last “frontiers” of extremist propaganda – confirmed the prime minister – are streaming music sites and gaming platforms, which are used mainly by the youngest, and from which ISIS servers can be accessed. As the recent arrests of young people between the ages of 15 and 16 already radicalized demonstrate, it is a process that has accelerated since 2016, when the first case was officially registered. But although religious extremism of Islamic origin is the main protagonist, this problem is not unrelated to other forms of radicalization or calls for violent action. One example is the 16-year-old Christian boy who allegedly masterminded the attack on two mosques in Singapore, after being indoctrinated into anti-Muslim hatred.
