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Fate of IS returnees to be decided in first half of year, senior minister says
Indonesia will decide in the coming months what to do with hundreds of Islamic State (IS) sympathizers seeking to return home after the fall of the extremist group last year, the country's chief security minister has said.
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Displaced Syrian women and a children walk toward tents at the internally displaced persons (IDP) camp of al-Hol in al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria,on February 7, 2019.
(AFP/Fadel Senna)
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s thousands of former Islamic State (IS) sympathizers in Syria and Iraq look to return home after the fall of the jihadist group’s territory last year, the government is examining how to handle inbound returnees in the next couple of months, Indonesia’s chief security minister has said.
Following a meeting with relevant agencies, Coordinating Politics, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD said the government would continue weighing its options for handling the possible repatriation of IS sympathizers.
“Today we discussed whether or not to repatriate them [Indonesian returnees], and, if they do return, whether or not [we take] all of them,” Mahfud said at his office in Jakarta on Tuesday.
He guaranteed that the rights of some 660 vetted returnees as they relate to statelessness would be upheld – Article 28 of the 1945 Constitution stipulates that “every person has the right to legal recognition, guarantees and protection, as well as fair and equal treatment before the law”.
However, he also said there were other risks involved should the government decide to bring them home. “The problem is if they are sent home, it may stir up concerns over the potential to inculcate a new 'terrorist virus,’” he said.
Beginning some six years ago, thousands of citizens from Indonesia and from countries around the world were emboldened to join IS in a failed experiment in statehood in parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Kurdish-led forces expelled the group from its last patch of territory in eastern Syria in March last year, leaving some 4,000 women and 8,000 children linked to the extremist organization wallowing in detention, AFP reports.
