Gordon Brown shakes hands with extremists
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/go...with-extremists/2008/11/03/1225560681226.html
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met former Saudi inmates of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay as he toured a deradicalisation facility on Sunday.
Brown spoke to six men at the facility near the capital Riyadh and shook hands with two inmates who had each spent six years at Guantanamo Bay as a result of their al-Qaeda links.
Saudi officials claim their efforts at rehabilitating extremists using months of reasoned argument against radical Islam have a success rate of 80 to 90 per cent; only 35 people out of 3200 in the program have been rearrested for security offences.
When the men are released, they are given jobs and other support.
An official at the centre, Dr Abdel Rahman Hadlaq, said it was a key step to break the inmates' links with radicals.
"If we don't support them, someone else will support them," he said.
Preventing young British Muslims, particularly those with family ties to Pakistan, from embracing violent extremism has become a key priority for Britain's security services since four British men killed 52 commuters in suicide bomb attacks on London's transport network in 2005.
Jonathan Evans, head of Britain's domestic spy agency MI5, has said his officers are monitoring around 2000 potential terrorists in the UK, who are planning around 30 potential attacks at any given time.
The Saudi inmates are kept in secure compounds with facilities such as gyms and swimming pools while imams give them lessons on moderate Islam.
The Riyadh facility is staffed by 100 clerics, 50 social workers and 30 other specialists.
Juma al-Dossary, 35, who has been at the facility for six months after six years at Guantanamo, said "they have convinced us logically".
Al-Dossary said they had been in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and fell in with extremists. He is now married, about to become a father and planning a career in computing.
None of the six men Brown met have been charged or convicted of any offence.
AP
I know what you're all thinking, swimming pools etc. for these assholes. What isn't mentioned is the fact that if the terrorists aren't persuaded, its Friday afternoon entertainment in the town square for them ie: decapitation. Nice persuader.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/go...with-extremists/2008/11/03/1225560681226.html
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met former Saudi inmates of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay as he toured a deradicalisation facility on Sunday.
Brown spoke to six men at the facility near the capital Riyadh and shook hands with two inmates who had each spent six years at Guantanamo Bay as a result of their al-Qaeda links.
Saudi officials claim their efforts at rehabilitating extremists using months of reasoned argument against radical Islam have a success rate of 80 to 90 per cent; only 35 people out of 3200 in the program have been rearrested for security offences.
When the men are released, they are given jobs and other support.
An official at the centre, Dr Abdel Rahman Hadlaq, said it was a key step to break the inmates' links with radicals.
"If we don't support them, someone else will support them," he said.
Preventing young British Muslims, particularly those with family ties to Pakistan, from embracing violent extremism has become a key priority for Britain's security services since four British men killed 52 commuters in suicide bomb attacks on London's transport network in 2005.
Jonathan Evans, head of Britain's domestic spy agency MI5, has said his officers are monitoring around 2000 potential terrorists in the UK, who are planning around 30 potential attacks at any given time.
The Saudi inmates are kept in secure compounds with facilities such as gyms and swimming pools while imams give them lessons on moderate Islam.
The Riyadh facility is staffed by 100 clerics, 50 social workers and 30 other specialists.
Juma al-Dossary, 35, who has been at the facility for six months after six years at Guantanamo, said "they have convinced us logically".
Al-Dossary said they had been in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and fell in with extremists. He is now married, about to become a father and planning a career in computing.
None of the six men Brown met have been charged or convicted of any offence.
AP
I know what you're all thinking, swimming pools etc. for these assholes. What isn't mentioned is the fact that if the terrorists aren't persuaded, its Friday afternoon entertainment in the town square for them ie: decapitation. Nice persuader.