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Islamic State returnees: Whose human rights come first?

The government’s recent decision to not repatriate Islamic State (IS) fighters to Indonesia should be appreciated

Irine H. Gayatri (The Jakarta Post)
Victoria, Australia
Sat, February 29, 2020

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Islamic State returnees: Whose human rights come first?

T

he government’s recent decision to not repatriate Islamic State (IS) fighters to Indonesia should be appreciated. Follow-up measures must come immediately.

The government says it will gather data on the number and identity of the citizens who had joined IS; moreover, young children might be repatriated.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD said that “children under 10 will be considered on a case-by-case basis: for example, if they have parents there or not”.

Such a decision seems to have carefully considered public opinion on the issue.

Nowadays every news item of a terrorist act hits home, bringing to mind many attacks in several cities in Indonesia; survivors and affected families and communities are still traumatized and deeply saddened.

Such sentiments may have influenced the government decision to revoke the citizenship of Indonesian IS fighters.

Meanwhile, the government must honestly review the degree of success or lack thereof of its policies in preventing and overcoming extremism; including approaches to disengage former convicted terrorists or supporters from extremist beliefs and terrorist networks, and deradicalization.

Michele Coninsx, who leads the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate said in 2017 that returning foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) or those relocated in third countries pose a global threat.

Among other threats, the United States and the United Kingdom and several European Union member states have arms trade interests in conflict areas.

The European Parliament has issued a warning to control arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the US to guarantee that the weapons are not obtained by IS.

A single state cannot overcome the challenges that arise from transnational crime organizations, even within its own borders.

Therefore, regional organizations like ASEAN increasingly collaborate to prevent and overcome terrorism in Southeast Asia. The ASEAN Convention on Counter-Terrorism which Indonesia ratified in 2012 has been criticized as “ill-conceived, half-hearted and weak”, yet the pact has overcome the organization’s noninterference principle because of shared concerns over terrorism and problems created by the return of FTFs.

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Survivors’ testimonies remind us of the continuing trauma affecting those caught up in terrorist attacks and the profound affect that attacks have on communities.

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Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia have been closely cooperating given the well-founded fears of IS fighters regrouping and establishing an IS base in the southern Philippines.

Global and regional instruments and cooperation are all needed to tackle these terrorist threats and to prevent further loss.

Survivors’ testimonies remind us of the continuing trauma affecting those caught up in terrorist attacks and the profound affect that attacks have on communities.

At the end of 2019, Deutsche Welle released a documentary about the war-torn town of Mosul from the eyes of residents trying to rebuild their lives.

A man walking through the rubble shows us letters and pictures of his family and his child.

They were all dead. He said he wished he could die with them. In another scene, a little girl describes gruesome violence that she witnessed on the streets during IS rule.

A woman/mother who lived under the rule of IS for three years, told of her bitter experience after the terrorist group was defeated.

One father had just found his dead son under the rubble. Corruption and unrest are further issues that communities find it difficult to overcome.

A chilling reminder of how far states must calculate any risk of terrorism can be found in the Global Terrorism Index (2019).

It shows that Indonesia’s ranking — along with Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea — is dropping due to a decline in the frequency of incidents and casualties.

Therefore, a citizen’s right to live safely must be guaranteed by the government. Even if only children of IS-related families return, they must be provided with a counseling program until they no longer accept violence, let alone use their religion as a justification for murder.

A coordinated mechanism is needed where children can be nurtured in a pluralistic environment, despite today’s increasing threat of intolerance in the country.

Furthermore, a holistic “disengagement” program for women and children who were exposed to IS violence surely requires the attention not only of the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry but also from the Education and Culture Ministry.

Second, the state needs to guarantee as much as possible that former IS (especially former combatants) will not relapse and become new threats to society.

This would entail a review of the implementation of the 2019 government regulation on terrorism prevention and protection of law enforcers.

Third, an institutionalized disengagement and deradicalization system is needed, with quantifiable indicators to measure its success.

Furthermore, more close coordination and information sharing is needed among state officials and intelligence agencies on the mobility and whereabouts of returnees; apart from better trained prison staff in gradually rehabilitating detainees and disengaging them from extremist beliefs and networks.

Lastly, the government cannot eliminate the role of civil society organizations that have long been engaged in preventing extremism.

Repatriation of returnees also requires close monitoring from the counterterrorism authority because of the slippery slope of detainees holding onto their radical beliefs.

To this end, civil society organizations with psychological skills and knowledge about cultural approaches should contribute to settling returnees in society.

However, this will require a huge amount of security personnel, therefore initiatives must not be based on short-term interests since what is at stake is the safety of Indonesia’s people.

Will returnees choose to peacefully integrate back into society where they once lived? Will they become a new threat? Will they live peacefully next to us in a pluralistic society?

If we can achieve assurances we may reach a balance between the human rights of survivors and affected communities of terrorist acts and the rights of IS returnees.

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Senior researcher at the Center for Political Studies at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta. Currently researching women, peace and security and violent extremism for her PhD at the Gender, Peace and Security Center, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Australia.

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