Singapore detains teenage ‘East Asian supremacist’ for planning attacks on Malays, Muslims

Ethnic Chinese Singaporean Nick Lee Xing Qui was radicalised online and aspired to carry out a Christchurch-style attack, investigators said

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Mourners pray near a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, that was targeted in the 2019 attacks. Nick Lee Xing Qui had role-played as the Christchurch mosque shooter, investigators said. Photo: AP

Published: 2:01pm, 11 Feb 2025Updated: 8:12am, 12 Feb 2025

An 18-year-old Singaporean student who identified as an “East Asian supremacist” and was radicalised by violent far-right extremist ideologies has been detained under Singapore’s Internal Security Act.

Nick Lee Xing Qiu, who is of Chinese ethnicity, had aspired to conduct attacks against Malays and Muslims in Singapore. He believed that the Chinese, Korean and Japanese ethnicities were superior, the Internal Security Department said on Monday.

Lee was issued with a detention order in December last year. He is the third Singaporean youth with far-right extremist ideologies to be dealt with under the city state’s Internal Security Act.

The first case involved a 16-year-old detained in December 2020 for planning machete attacks on mosques. The second case also involved a 16-year-old who was issued with a restriction order in November 2023 after authorities found that he identified as a white supremacist and aspired to conduct attacks overseas.

Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant seen in court in 2020. Nick Lee Xing Qiu came to idolise Tarrant, Singapore’s Internal Security Department said. Photo: Fairfax/dpa

Lee first started developing hostility towards Muslims in early 2023 after encountering Islamophobic and far-right content on social media. He spent several hours a day searching for and consuming extremist online content, according to the Internal Security Department.