SINGAPORE: There are only six countries with structured rehabilitation programmes for terror detainees and Singapore is one of them. The others are Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Oman, said terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna who was speaking at an international symposium on the issue, in Singapore on Thursday (Apr 16).

Religious rehabilitation and social integration are seen as key factors for counter-terrorism efforts to work, in the long-term. And Singapore’s twin efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate terror detainees have proven to quite successful, with participants at the conference eager to learn from the experience of the city state.

Singapore’s Religious Rehabilitation Group was formally set up in 2003 after the crackdown on the Jemaah Islamiyah network in the country. Over the years, the group has extended its outreach to the wider community, in efforts to prevent them from falling under the influence of extremist terrorist ideology.