Holistic Approach Needed to Fight Religious Extremism

TODAY

17 April 2015

SINGAPORE — Identifying weak religious grounding as a common trait among radicalised individuals here, national leaders yesterday reiterated the need for a holistic approach to counter the threat of terrorism.

Speaking at the East Asia Summit Symposium on Religious Rehabilitation and Social Integration, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said: “One common characteristic that has been observed among radicalised individuals that we have investigated in Singapore is that they possess weak religious grounding.”

He added that this made the individuals “more susceptible to believing wholesale the radical exhortations that distort religious concepts to give their message of violence an aura of divine sanction”.

Since the first arrest of alleged Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) members here, religious scholars and teachers have embarked on a counselling programme to debunk radical ideas, said Mr Teo, who is also Home Affairs Minister.

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