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New school aims to care for children of terrorists

Fresh start: National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) chief Comr

Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post)
Medan
Mon, February 27, 2017

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New school aims to care for children of terrorists

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span class="inline inline-center">Fresh start: National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) chief Comr. Gen. Suhardi Alius (left) along with North Sumatra Governor T. Erry Nuradi (second from left) and grand imam of Istiqlal Mosque Nashiruddin Umar (right) inaugurate Al Hidayah Islamic boarding school in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra. The school will educate children of convicted terrorists away.(JP/Apriadi Gunawan)

An Islamic boarding school for children of convicted terrorists in Deli Serdang regency, North Sumatra, has begun operations following its launch by National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) head Comr. Gen.
Suhardi Alius.

Suhardi said the school had not been established with state funds but rather with support from generous donors. The institution, he said, aimed to educate the children, who had been exposed to extreme values, and keep them away from radical Islamic teachings.

“Dealing with terrorists is not just about shooting and arresting, but also about bringing them back into society,” Suhardi said on the sidelines of the opening ceremony for the mosque and classrooms of the Al Hidayah boarding school in Kutalimbaru district.

He said one way of doing so was through the mosque and classrooms at the boarding school — or pesantren, as it is locally known —so that radical doctrine could be easily be avoided.

Children, he said, had to be given good education to prevent them from terrorism and terrorist acts. “This pesantren is part of the government’s commitment to preventing radicalism,” said Suhardi.

The school’s founder, Khairul Ghazali alias Abu Yasin, a former terrorism convict who was jailed for robbing a bank, said this was the first-ever such school launched in Indonesia.

He said he had been inspired to build the facility on a plot of 30 hectares after being released on parole and witnessing how the children of terrorists were alienated in their neighborhoods.

He also said that most of the former terrorists’ children did not attend school due to financial problems. This moved him to come up with the initiative to build the pesantren specially designed for them last year.

“Praises to Allah, the pesantren is officially operating now,” said Khairul, adding that 20 children of former terrorists were currently studying at the pesantren free of charge.

He said the school specialized in preventing radicalism and at the same time providing education to the children of terrorist inmates. He said unless proper education was given to them, they were feared to follow in their parents’ footsteps and become terrorists. “This pesantren can cut through that chain.”

Khairul said he wanted all the students at the pesantren to mingle, so that there would be no discrimination. Only that way could the negative stigma on children from a terrorist background be eradicated.

“Such negative stigma is still felt by former terrorists’ families,” he said.

He said the students were the children of people involved in the attack on the Hamparan Perak Police station in Deli Serdang, the robbery of a CIMB Bank branch in Medan and the terrorist training camp in Jantho Aceh.

Some of the parents are still in detention, while others have been released, including Jumirin alias Sobirin, who currently works as a fisherman in Tanjungbalai.

He also said that all the parents of his students were friends of his and that most of them had repented. Only some five percent of them were still active in radical groups. He declined to mention their whereabouts, arguing that he had lost contact with them.

The launching ceremony of the pesantren on Friday was also attended by North Sumatra Governor Tengku Erry Nuradi, BNPT officers, lawmakers and Islamic scholars, including the grand imam of Istiqlal Mosque, Nasharuddin Umar.

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