Rehabilitation of Extremists

[Merlin]

I'll start a new thread specifically on this important topic. This article is about the real need for such programs in Pakistan.

Former extremist now fights militancy in Pakistan

5 Jun ISLAMABAD (AP) — Ten years ago, Maajid Nawaz came to Pakistan to recruit for an extremist group intent on a global Islamic state. Now he's on a different mission — to steer youth away from militancy.

Nawaz's message is one rarely heard in Pakistan, where the response to extremism has been overwhelmingly military, with little attempt to try to rehabilitate insurgents or keep young people from turning to militancy in the first place. ....

While Pakistan has poured troops and weaponry into its fight against the Taliban and other extremist groups, it has adopted few of the softer measures aimed at dissuading militancy. And critics say that is a major weakness in Pakistan's strategy against terrorism.

"There is no country where such a program is more important than in Pakistan," said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert who chaired the first international conference on militant rehabilitation in Singapore in February.

"In parallel with the kinetic fight to catch and kill terrorists, there needs to be a parallel policy to fight the ideology."

There are signs Pakistan is considering such a program. Senior officials recently went to Saudi Arabia to study the effort there, considered the world's most comprehensive. Egypt pioneered the idea of militant rehabilitation in the 1990s, and Yemen, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia have also followed suit.

The programs involve counseling by moderate clerics and former extremists. Militants who renounce their old ways can receive financial support or help finding a job. Parallel programs in schools and mosques are aimed at young people. .....

The results from such soft tactics have varied, said Christopher Boucek, who recently published a report on the Saudi program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Indonesia has persuaded prominent terrorists to disavow violence and counsel others to do the same. But 23 of 117 Saudis who returned from Guantanamo and passed through the Saudi system have been re-arrested or are on the government's most-wanted terrorist list, said Boucek. ....

[zraver]

Only 23 of 117 is a pretty good rehabilitation rate in my opinion. Abuses at Gitmo either experienced or witnessed take a philosophical hatred and make it real and personal.

[Merlin]

This is the thinking of the US military command in Iraq in 2007.

U.S. tries rehab for religious extremists

Singapore has reduced its detainee ranks with Islamic reeducation.

Oct 2007 [CSMonitor] SINGAPORE - A counseling program that employs Muslim clerics to rebut extremist views of detainees has steadily reduced their numbers over the past four years in Singapore, suggesting that religious-based rehabilitation may offer an alternative to indefinite detention without trial in the US-led war on terrorism.

Faced with swelling detention centers, US military commanders in Iraq have begun to take note. In recent months, they have introduced religious-education programs for adults and juveniles that are modeled, in part, on Singapore's and on a much larger program in Saudi Arabia.

Setbacks in a similar program in Yemen, shelved in 2005 because of high rates of recidivism, had raised doubts about the approach. Experts also distinguish between rehabilitating low-level sympathizers and hardened leaders of terrorist groups, groups, who may see little to gain from cooperating with authorities.

But proponents say that an effective counterterrorism strategy must include efforts to combat religious indoctrination, especially for suspects held behind bars. Injustice is a recruiting tool, and open-ended detention of suspects is an affront to many Muslims. Releasing them into the community armed with Islamic teachings that debunk Al Qaeda's do-or-die rhetoric can help to win a "war of ideas," the proponents argue.

"Deprogramming is not 100-percent successful. Among suspects that you rehabilitate, some will go back (to militancy). But it's the only intelligent thing to do," says Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Nanyang Technological University and a consultant on the Singaporean program. "We've planted a seed.… Iraq was the beginning. I believe America can take this idea to Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and other areas. ....