Who is Dr Lee Kwan Chen (Nachtsider)?

A 31-year-old doctor, Dr Lee Kwan Chen, is engulfed in controversy for his numerous inappropriate and offensive statements posted online to local tech portal HardwareZone’s forums.

Dr Lee, who is based in Australia, worked for the Tasmania Health Service for two years from February 2016.

Better known by his alias, Nachtsider on HardwareZone, Dr Lee had posted two photographs of him in medical attire and with his degree certificates from The University of Melbourne on the site.

Photo: Lee Kwan Chen/HardwareZone

Concerns about doctor’s controversial online posts

In a comment he posted to the internet forum in December 2017, Dr Lee shared his thoughts on a male Egyptian lawyer who was put behind bars for saying that women who wear ripped jeans should be raped as punishment. He said: “I’m surprised they didn’t give him a medal instead.”

Dr Lee, who was active on a HardwareZone thread he started, “AMA (ask me anything) Dr Lee Awaits his questions,” also wrote that if his marriage should fall apart: “it would not end up in divorce, it would end in murder.” According to a post by the disgraced doctor, he is married to a psychiatrist.

Photo: Lee Kwan Chen/HardwareZone

He stirred even more controversy when he justified his comments and said: “some women deserve to be raped.”

Dr Lee defended his provocative comments and maintained they were made in: “the context of a socio-political situation in Singapore/Malaysia, where a local college student made disparaging remarks about national servicemen.”

His comments landed him in hot water when his Hardwarezone posts were seen by officials and he was hauled before the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal.

A joint submission by Dr Lee and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency said that his online posts did not influence his work. The former also added that he was relatively young and inexperienced at the time of making the comments.

After careful consideration, however, tribunal chairman Robert Webster suspended him for six weeks starting from next month and ordered him to go for classes in ethical behaviour and communications, particularly in the use of social media.