How To -"deprogram" -- Singapore's Terrorist Detainees

[churchill]

The Best Guide for Gitmo? Look to Singapore.

"Kassim, along with nearly 40 other Islamic scholars, is part of a select group of religious leaders called the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), which is trying to rehabilitate -- or, as its members say, "deprogram" -- Singapore's terrorist detainees. In 2001, Singapore's authorities had no idea that they had a terrorist problem. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government was tipped off that a cell of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian militant group with links to al-Qaeda, was planning attacks across the city-state. In raids in late 2001 and 2002, more than 30 members of the terrorist outfit were arrested; more arrests followed. So, while the United States was filling its detention center at Guantanamo with foreign fighters, Singapore began to house its own population of Muslim extremists in its jails.

Singapore's strict law-and-order government, which famously enforced a ban on chewing gum, may seem an unlikely candidate for believing terrorists could be reformed. But Singapore -- often referred to as "the little red dot" in Southeast Asia's Islamic sea -- is in a precarious position, and its government felt compelled to take action that would not only disrupt the terrorist group's operations, but also counter its ideological appeal. "We are what we are out of necessity," says Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo. "[islamic extremism] is a long-term problem, and it's not going to go away in our lifetime. The only way you can combat it is to have an immune system."

Singaporean officials said they decided to use Islamic clerics because they were convinced that only religious leaders could "de-program" the detainees. "Once you have taken an oath of God, it will take another man of God to undo it," a senior security official told me. "

continued at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...237.html?sub=AR