USA
Trying Singapore’s way
City's clerics briefed Americans on their counselling methods on Jemaah Islamiah detainees for use in Iraq. Christian Science Monitor.
Oct 15, 2007

US military has introduced religious counselling for detainees in Iraq in recent months that are modelled in part on programmes in Singapore and Saudi Arabia, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

Singaporeans imams had briefed US officials in Iraq on their educational programme for Jemmah Islamuah (JI) detainees that has steadily reduced their numbers over the past four years in the city-state, it said.

The Monitor reporter, Simon Montlake, said the decline had suggested to the Americans that religious-based rehabilitation may offer an alternative to indefinite detention without trial in the US-led war on terrorism.

Faced with swelling detention centres, US military commanders in Iraq have begun to take note.

Since 2001, Singapore authorities disrupted a plot by JI, a regional al Qaeda affiliate, to attack Western and Singaporean targets in the city, around 70 people have been detained under internal security laws that allow detention without trial.

More than one third of them have since been released from jail or house arrest after cooperating with authorities. One has been re-arrested for allegedly contacting foreign militants.

Launched in 2003, the Religious Rehabilitation Group has 21 volunteer clerics who lead weekly one-on-one counselling sessions with detainees to "correct their misinterpretations" of Islam, says Mohammed bin Ali, one of the clerics who works in the group secretariat.

By systematically exposing the distortions of JI doctrine, the counsellors show how Muslims can live devoutly in multi-faith Singapore, where they make up around 15 percent of its 4.2m population.

The government-funded group also hosts public forums and runs a Web site (www.rrg.sg).

'No one is born a terrorist'

"We believe in rehabilitation. No one is born a terrorist. No one wakes up one morning and says I'm going to be a terrorist.

”It's indoctrination ... and we're trying to bring them back to normalcy," says bin Ali, who has briefed US military officials in Iraq on Singapore's programme.

Neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia have also sought to rehabilitate JI detainees using moderate Muslim teachings, with varying degrees of success.

"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 programme.

"We've planted a seed. ... Iraq was the beginning. I believe America can take this idea to Guantánamo, Afghanistan, and other areas."

Read full report: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1009/p01s04-woap.html