RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – No one is at home in the dusty brown grounds of the Islamic extremist reintegration center. The swimming pool is still there. The art therapy gallery was lit, but there were no visitors. There is not a single sheet of paper that goes unused at the psychological and social services unit.
Beneficiaries of a Saudi government program to help prisoners reintegrate into society have increased family visits for Eid al-Adha, the season of Sacrifices, leaving the place empty for a moment. weird way, like an American college campus at Christmas. break.
Only one painting in the gallery offers a glimpse of the religious tolerance that is the hallmark of the show: The painting shows a woman smelling a flower, her hair loosely floating in the background. night.
The program, with its campus in Riyadh and another in Jeddah, has grown from a The anti-terrorist campaign started in 2004 to re-educate citizens who have returned home from jihadist training camps in Afghanistan and others affected by them.
About 6,000 men have undergone some form of the program, among them 137 were once held in the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, none of whom were convicted of war crimes. .
The Guantánamo detainee was finally sent to the program in 2017, shortly before President Donald J. Trump dismantled the office of transfer negotiations.
Now, the question is whether the center will fit in with President Biden’s effort to close the Guantánamo prison, which opened more than 20 years ago to hold terror suspects across the globe. September 11 attacks or not.
Over the years, the United States has hosted about 780 men and boys in Guantánamo Baywith about 660 people at a peak in 2003. Saudi citizens are particularly concerned because 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks were Saudi.
The Trump administration released only one prisoner from Guantánamo, a confessed Qaeda operative now serving a prison sentence in Riyadh under an Obama-era plea agreement. The Biden Administration repatriation of another Saudi citizen in May, but under an agreement put him in psychiatric treatment for schizophrenia, not jihadist rehabilitation.
More than half of Guantánamo’s current detainees have been released but must wait for the Biden administration to find a country willing to accept them with security arrangements. Most come from Yemen, one of a number of countries that Congress considers too unstable to accept men from Guantánamo.
Other detainees are in plea negotiations with discussions about whether convicts can serve their sentences while detained abroad.
The Obama administration has tried to close the prison, and Saudi Arabia is one of the countries featured in the relocation plan. Another is Oman, which has taken in 28 Yemeni men in a top secret project to find them wives, homes and jobs, as long as they don’t tell their neighbors that they used to work in Guantánamo, according to people who were incarcerated.
None of those resettled men was ever tried for war crimes.
The Obama administration sent 20 prisoners to the United Arab Emirates, mostly Yemenis but also some Afghans and a man from Russia. But the country essentially jailed them and then abruptly repatriated all but the Russians, sparking human rights protests that risked persecution of those returning.
With the program deemed a failure, the Biden administration sought other options for those arrested, mainly Yemenis.
A recent visit to the dusty brown campus on the outskirts of Riyadh highlighted one possibility.
The program was founded and named for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a former interior minister with close ties to US intelligence agencies. When he was forced out by the de facto ruler of the kingdomCrown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the program was renamed the Counseling and Care Center.
As described by the administrators, the program combines classes on nonviolent interpretations of Shariah law with physical fitness, recreation, and counseling with the aim of returning graduates to their families. their.
Or, as one employee called it, undoing the “brainwashing that happens” when a young man is drawn into religious extremism.
One library recommends reading about successful Saudis, “the right people, to avoid false role models, not the path that turns you into darkness or death,” said Wnyan Obied Alsubaiee, director. program, who holds the rank of major in general, through an interpreter.
A book that tells the story of a Saudi man who studied in New York in the 1970s and became famous in civic life in his homeland, including a role in the dialogue. Saudi Arabia-U.S. after the September 11 attacks. Another book is a biography of a former government minister, “Building the Petrochemical Industry in Saudi Arabia.”
General Alsubaiee said two former Guantánamo detainees in the Saudi prison system will be admitted to the program once they are released from prison. One is Ahmed Muhammed Haza al-Darbi, the Qaeda terrorist confessed to being released by the Trump administration. The identity of the other person is not known.
angry director Description of the program like a five star hotel for extremists.
“This is not an award,” he said. “They are no longer prisoners. They have to return to society. We want them to feel accepted, and this is another opportunity.”
Of the 137 men brought to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo, some were sent to Saudi prisons, 116 reintegrated into society and out of trouble, 12 were re-arrested, Eight people were killed and one was “wanted,” according to a program flyer.
None of the men were identified by the Saudi government during the visit. But some of the dead are known, especially those sent under the George W. Bush administration and then fled to Yemen, where they join Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
In Riyadh, program participants live in pods, individual bedrooms arranged around a courtyard with a mosque, kitchen and a small outdoor stove for making tea on cool desert nights. .
As described by program managers, the Saudi participants’ first home visits were short-term but evolved into long-term stays with family – for example, a two-week holiday leaving the center almost empty in July.
The national security apparatus is invisible but present. The director is a military official and the security guards and caretakers dress alike in the classic white coat and red headscarf favored by government workers and businessmen. In the gym, an instructor points to a camera in a corner of the weightlifting area and explains that facial expressions are being monitored.
But on this visit, Saudi Arabia’s transparency has only gone so far. No one can say how many of the program’s 200 slots have been used, or when the most recent or longest resident arrived.
At the gallery, an art therapist, Awad Alyami, describes her show as an opportunity for men to express their feelings and for program sponsors to evaluate them.
An expressionist painting of the crowd surrounding Kaaba in Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, but clockwise rather than ritually counterclockwise. Program staff were concerned about the depiction of the holy place and asked the artist to meet with a rabbi.
Part of the gallery showcases the work of former Guantanamo prisoners.
“A lot of weird stuff here,” Dr. Alyami said.
The area is unsigned, but features watchtowers, razor wires and men in orange uniforms. The art of the other showrunners tended to lean towards desert scenes and other Saudi themes.
