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UNIPATH STAFF
A program aimed a reintegrating radicalized youths into mainstream society is getting remarkable results in Afghanistan. The De-radicalization of Afghan Youth (DAY) program helps Afghans under 18 who have been placed in juvenile rehabilitation centers for committing acts against Afghan and coalition forces and are considered national security threats. Some cooperated with terrorists by forging documents, while others planned suicide attacks and other violent activities.
Enrollees attend three hours of classes five days a week and are taught Islam from a properly vetted instructor who is a mullah. The 12-month program is voluntary; every enrollee is there by choice. The program operates from six regional centers: Kabul, Jalalabad, Logar, Kandahar, Helmand and Herat. After initial reluctance to even acknowledge they are members of a terrorist group, participants eventually speak openly about their experiences and denounce violence and terror.
Recently, the DAY program received its first Daesh-Khorasan members for deradicalization. The classes include debates about topics related to Islam, and the instructors dispel terrorist spins on common Islamic themes. The debates are recorded so the staff can analyze the participants’ arguments and become more effective at dispelling terrorist/extremist propaganda. They develop a deeper understanding of the ideological differences among violent extremist organizations (VEOs).
“The deradicalization program is very effective, and changes (the participants’) way of thinking,” said Mohammad Seddiq Siddiqi, director of the juvenile rehabilitation centers.
He lauded the program as one of the only successful efforts to deradicalize Afghan youth. When asked the primary method VEOs use to recruit at-risk youth, he said it was through a selective and contorted “religious” indoctrination program run in madrassas in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was amazed at how little these juveniles actually know about basic Islam. They could only cite the phrases and sections of the Quran taught by the VEOs.
When the DAY imams would recite basic and fundamental passages from the Quran, such as “killing one person is the same as killing all of humanity,” the participants denied the existence of such passages. This demonstrated to Siddiqi that the tool used to exploit these young men was not blind obedience to Islam, but the near complete ignorance and lack of knowledge about even the basic tenets of Islam.
This has brought about an increased emphasis not only on teaching moderate Islam, but on basic education as well. The correlation has become apparent between radicalization susceptibility and lack of education, Siddiqi said.
Additionally, youths deradicalized by the program will visit juvenile centers to share success stories with current inmates. These young men explain how they were exploited and what made them see through VEO deceit and manipulation.
“The deradicalization program helps the juveniles calm down and become less aggressive,” said Mir Fayazuddin Amini, director of the center in Kabul. “The juveniles regret what they’ve been doing.”
They urge their peers not to be deceived by the Taliban and other terrorist groups. “Most of them who were arrested in connection with terrorist attacks have been given the wrong religious education and therefore, here, religious scholars teach them every day — in the morning and evening,” Amini said.
“After this I will study and I ask others also not to be deceived by the Taliban,” one of the boys told TOLOnews, a 24-hour news channel.
Siddiqi hopes to expand the DAY program to more provinces.