SCHOLARS, religious leaders and officials will be able to better learn how their counterparts elsewhere challenge radical views, from creative videos that counter hardline ideas to information on former militants turned good.

They will be part of a new platform launched yesterday to pool and share experiences on rehabilitating and reintegrating militants.

Called the Strategies on Aftercare and Reintegration Network, it will first engage close to 600 participants from 30 countries who attended the two-day East Asia Summit Symposium on Religious Rehabilitation and Social Reintegration.

… The network will be managed by Singapore’s International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), which is part of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

The school’s executive deputy chairman Ong Keng Yong told participants that communication among those working to counter extremism, as well as engaging the wider community in such efforts, is important. But collaboration among like-minded partners is also key, and this is what the network seeks to bring about.

“We have to look for partners and the challenges that we have here cannot be done and solved by only one person and one country,” he said.

… Professor Rohan Gunaratna, who heads the ICPVTR, said the network will build on discussions from the event and “expand beyond this to strengthen the hands of the community, state and other organisations to counter the current and emerging wave of extremism and terrorism”.