*** Another report I'm eagerly awaiting. We talk for years and years about the theory of this but little effort is made in actually DOING something about it. It frustrates me knowing that we could be getting it with it right this moment - but that some would rather wait until it becomes a problem and then respond. Ah the reactionaries! predictable and susceptible to surprise. THINK. MS ***
FROM: http://icsr.info/project/de-radicalisation-and-disengagement-in-prisons---lessons-from-15-countries
De-radicalisation and Disengagement in Prisons - Lessons from 15 Countries
Aim: to compare and evaluate government policies on terrorist and extremist prisoners as well as the various programmes and initiatives aimed at "de-programming" and re-habilitation.
Prisons are increasingly seen as a 'place of vulnerability' in which radicalisation and recruitment are taking place. The development has gone largely unnoticed, but - with growing numbers of violent extremists awaiting trial or serving their sentences - the problem is unlikely to go away.
Some countries have long struggled with the issue. They have developed innovative and apparently successful programmes through which radical prisoners are de-radicalised and rehabilitated. Other countries - mostly those in Western Europe and North America - are just about to begin to tackle the problem.
The ICSR study will compare and evaluate government policies on terrorist and extremist prisoners as well as the various programmes and initiatives that have been aimed at 'de-programming' and rehabilitating them.
The project will be launched in June 2009 and is expected to conclude in early 2010. It is carried out in partnership with START/University of Maryland, and will be funded by the UK Home Office, as well as the Dutch and Australian Governments.
Showing posts with label Deradicalization program Toronto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deradicalization program Toronto. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
GOVT. FUNDING FOR JIHADI'S? ROBERT FULFORD
*** Mr. Fulford, I think you've missed the point.
The funding is for at-risk groups who run a serious risk of turning to extremism precisely because they feel the govt. does not care for their situation. It makes it extremely difficult for Muslim groups (who do not receive funding like their counterparts - an obvious bias that stares us in the face) to be able to run programs to counter radicalization, which will soon become the government's problem, like it or not. Believe me, there are not enough CSIS agents to keep up with the acceleration of radicalization, no effective strategies to provide a counter narrative and poor relationship building with the community you need the information from.
Second, how do you suggest we counter the millions of dollars coming from overseas to Mosques here in Toronto and elsewhere? To monitor and counter this IS the govt.'s job not ours yet WE are supposed to compete with them on OUR own dime and time? Be realistic, man!
Third, THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of tax dollars go to house and feed terrorists for years upon years in prisons. They can even get the funding for degrees and other training/study. If you funded ONE youth worker who gets paid HALF of what it costs to house ONE young offender for ONE year - you will save MANY from ending up in jail. It's a little thing called 'prevention is better than cure' and is a wisdom that rings true for all people and faiths. The math and the method make sense.
That the govt. cannot justify giving fractions of the millions that come from outside Canada, or fractions of what you are ALREADY paying just to help the pro-Canadian Muslim groups is truly, counter productive.
The choice is with the government to decide if it wishes to continue taking a hands-off approach with the Muslim community or if they are really serious about fighting extremism and terrorism by helping those who are able to do so.
Do you want to know what kind of people associate themselves with such an anti-assistance attitude: take a look at the postings after your article, Mr. Fulford, they are full of racism, hate of immigrants and white power: the main ingredients of the Nazi's. What does that tell you? They are no different than the jihadi's who post hateful message about non Muslims in the name of free speech and then end up committing crimes.
Govt. (in)action is largely responsible for the radicalization of Muslim youth - don't for a second think you can do this without us because we realize that we cannot do it without you too. We MUST work together otherwise we will BOTH pay a hefty price - ultimately to be paid by the taxpayers anyway. But who cares eh? MS ***
---
After Fahim Ahmad pleaded guilty to taking part in the Toronto 18 terrorism plot on Monday, certain Muslims began to admit privately that it’s possible the police were right to charge Ahmad and others with planning to storm Parliament, behead politicians and otherwise assert themselves as jihadi warriors in Canada.
We have all heard many times that official Canada is riddled with Islamophobia, but perhaps in this case the murderous plans of radicalized Muslim youth, and their threat to their fellow Muslims and all other Canadians, must be at least discussed. It’s no longer possible to think that the arrests in 2006 were not justified.
What can be done? How can young Muslim Canadians be persuaded not to turn into radicals? Is it not the responsibility of community elders to steer the young away from the calamity of Islamist passions? One way or another, peaceful Muslims must address this problem that has arisen in their community.
On Wednesday morning, Nazim Baksh, a CBC producer who has been following the story for four years, outlined for Toronto local-radio listeners what he’s heard from Muslims trying to deal with this issue.
As Baksh described it, “The discussion was raised about -- do we get government funding to do de-radicalization programs in Toronto? Which model do we follow?”
That was the first point Baksh made about the conversations, and almost the last one. Muslims wanted to create “an internal program” in the community but, as Baksh explained, the Canadian government has been reluctant to support this kind of initiative. For that reason or some other, no program has taken shape.
Baksh’s Muslim acquaintances are obviously adapting themselves to the Canadian way. Their automatic response is to turn for help to the government. Their plan seems to me a spectacular case of state-dependency, worse even than the issue of funding for Toronto’s Gay Pride parade, discussed in a Post editorial earlier this week.
Surely, those who spoke to Baksh couldn’t have given that idea much thought. It’s obvious that anyone who might conceivably become a violent Islamist would stay as far away as possible from anything supported by the Canadian government. Running that kind of a program on a government grant perfectly defines the term “counter-productive.” Sounds like madness to me. But neither Baksh nor his interviewer on the program, Matt Galloway, raised this point.
It seems a particularly odd position for Muslims to take. Mosques, which do not receive government funding, are said to generate opinions among young Muslims. Why should mosques not provide the “deradicalization” education on their own initiative (and dime)? Much of the world, including many Muslims, believes that certain mosques can persuade impressionable young men to become radical Islamists. Why can’t other mosques persuade them otherwise?
Canadians have come to believe that almost any program for human betterment requires, first of all, public funding. Government has always played a large role in education, for instance, but its role has grown steadily greater in recent times. Middle-class Canadians (unlike middle-class Americans) don’t routinely establish college funds for their children; they assume that if their children deserve university education, government will be there to provide it, through grants or guaranteed loans.
We now have come to believe that if the quality of our education lacks something, government must be blamed. We have decided not to blame the teachers or parents. And of course no one would dream of blaming the students.
In health care, the situation is more dire because it is necessarily hidden. We are slowly (and inevitably) developing forms of private medicine that will run parallel to public medicine. But we are so devoted to a deluded belief in public medicine that we must pretend we are maintaining it in its purest sense, as mandated by the Canada Health Act of 1984. Change is inevitable but it must be clandestine. So we handle it in the most awkward way possible.
The belief that nothing can be established without government help now runs into the ugly fact that governments are desperately short of money.
How did we get into this fix? Can we ever get out of it? When even immigrant Muslims become infected by our twisted social system, we need to reconsider how we organize society.
The funding is for at-risk groups who run a serious risk of turning to extremism precisely because they feel the govt. does not care for their situation. It makes it extremely difficult for Muslim groups (who do not receive funding like their counterparts - an obvious bias that stares us in the face) to be able to run programs to counter radicalization, which will soon become the government's problem, like it or not. Believe me, there are not enough CSIS agents to keep up with the acceleration of radicalization, no effective strategies to provide a counter narrative and poor relationship building with the community you need the information from.
Second, how do you suggest we counter the millions of dollars coming from overseas to Mosques here in Toronto and elsewhere? To monitor and counter this IS the govt.'s job not ours yet WE are supposed to compete with them on OUR own dime and time? Be realistic, man!
Third, THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of tax dollars go to house and feed terrorists for years upon years in prisons. They can even get the funding for degrees and other training/study. If you funded ONE youth worker who gets paid HALF of what it costs to house ONE young offender for ONE year - you will save MANY from ending up in jail. It's a little thing called 'prevention is better than cure' and is a wisdom that rings true for all people and faiths. The math and the method make sense.
That the govt. cannot justify giving fractions of the millions that come from outside Canada, or fractions of what you are ALREADY paying just to help the pro-Canadian Muslim groups is truly, counter productive.
The choice is with the government to decide if it wishes to continue taking a hands-off approach with the Muslim community or if they are really serious about fighting extremism and terrorism by helping those who are able to do so.
Do you want to know what kind of people associate themselves with such an anti-assistance attitude: take a look at the postings after your article, Mr. Fulford, they are full of racism, hate of immigrants and white power: the main ingredients of the Nazi's. What does that tell you? They are no different than the jihadi's who post hateful message about non Muslims in the name of free speech and then end up committing crimes.
Govt. (in)action is largely responsible for the radicalization of Muslim youth - don't for a second think you can do this without us because we realize that we cannot do it without you too. We MUST work together otherwise we will BOTH pay a hefty price - ultimately to be paid by the taxpayers anyway. But who cares eh? MS ***
---
After Fahim Ahmad pleaded guilty to taking part in the Toronto 18 terrorism plot on Monday, certain Muslims began to admit privately that it’s possible the police were right to charge Ahmad and others with planning to storm Parliament, behead politicians and otherwise assert themselves as jihadi warriors in Canada.
We have all heard many times that official Canada is riddled with Islamophobia, but perhaps in this case the murderous plans of radicalized Muslim youth, and their threat to their fellow Muslims and all other Canadians, must be at least discussed. It’s no longer possible to think that the arrests in 2006 were not justified.
What can be done? How can young Muslim Canadians be persuaded not to turn into radicals? Is it not the responsibility of community elders to steer the young away from the calamity of Islamist passions? One way or another, peaceful Muslims must address this problem that has arisen in their community.
On Wednesday morning, Nazim Baksh, a CBC producer who has been following the story for four years, outlined for Toronto local-radio listeners what he’s heard from Muslims trying to deal with this issue.
As Baksh described it, “The discussion was raised about -- do we get government funding to do de-radicalization programs in Toronto? Which model do we follow?”
That was the first point Baksh made about the conversations, and almost the last one. Muslims wanted to create “an internal program” in the community but, as Baksh explained, the Canadian government has been reluctant to support this kind of initiative. For that reason or some other, no program has taken shape.
Baksh’s Muslim acquaintances are obviously adapting themselves to the Canadian way. Their automatic response is to turn for help to the government. Their plan seems to me a spectacular case of state-dependency, worse even than the issue of funding for Toronto’s Gay Pride parade, discussed in a Post editorial earlier this week.
Surely, those who spoke to Baksh couldn’t have given that idea much thought. It’s obvious that anyone who might conceivably become a violent Islamist would stay as far away as possible from anything supported by the Canadian government. Running that kind of a program on a government grant perfectly defines the term “counter-productive.” Sounds like madness to me. But neither Baksh nor his interviewer on the program, Matt Galloway, raised this point.
It seems a particularly odd position for Muslims to take. Mosques, which do not receive government funding, are said to generate opinions among young Muslims. Why should mosques not provide the “deradicalization” education on their own initiative (and dime)? Much of the world, including many Muslims, believes that certain mosques can persuade impressionable young men to become radical Islamists. Why can’t other mosques persuade them otherwise?
Canadians have come to believe that almost any program for human betterment requires, first of all, public funding. Government has always played a large role in education, for instance, but its role has grown steadily greater in recent times. Middle-class Canadians (unlike middle-class Americans) don’t routinely establish college funds for their children; they assume that if their children deserve university education, government will be there to provide it, through grants or guaranteed loans.
We now have come to believe that if the quality of our education lacks something, government must be blamed. We have decided not to blame the teachers or parents. And of course no one would dream of blaming the students.
In health care, the situation is more dire because it is necessarily hidden. We are slowly (and inevitably) developing forms of private medicine that will run parallel to public medicine. But we are so devoted to a deluded belief in public medicine that we must pretend we are maintaining it in its purest sense, as mandated by the Canada Health Act of 1984. Change is inevitable but it must be clandestine. So we handle it in the most awkward way possible.
The belief that nothing can be established without government help now runs into the ugly fact that governments are desperately short of money.
How did we get into this fix? Can we ever get out of it? When even immigrant Muslims become infected by our twisted social system, we need to reconsider how we organize society.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
TORONTO BOMB PLOT LEADER APOLOGIZES (!)
FROM: http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/01/14/bomb-plot-ringleader-%E2%80%9Ci-will-change-myself-from-a-man-of-destruction-to-a-man-of-construction-%E2%80%9D/
A confessed terrorist who plotted mass murder in the name of Islam says he is a reformed man, was “lucky” to be arrested before his bombs ravaged downtown Toronto, and will accept any sentence he receives for conspiring to kill fellow Canadians.
Speaking in open court for the first time since his 2006 arrest, Zakaria Amara—the admitted ringleader of the “Toronto 18”—told a judge that he now rejects the radical religious ideology that fueled his deadly plot, and is thankful that the RCMP was watching him so closely. “I spent days upon days trying to summon words appropriate, meaningful and deep enough to express my regret and seek forgiveness for my actions,” he told Justice Bruce Durno, who will hand down a sentence on Monday. “At the end, I realized that only promises and actions could suffice. I would like to promise you and my fellow Canadians that I will use my sentence to change myself from a man of destruction to a man of construction. I promise, no matter how long it takes and how much it costs, to produce actions that will hopefully outweigh the actions that I once took towards hurting others.”
His apology—and the tears that followed later in the hearing—was a stark contrast from the old Zakaria Amara: the terrorist front man determined to bomb three targets in southern Ontario, including the Toronto Stock Exchange. Before his arrest, the tough-talking gas station attendant had built and perfected a remote-controlled detonator, ordered three tonnes of explosive fertilizer (from an undercover informant) and boasted that his attack is “gonna be kicking ass like never before.” With police wiretaps running, he told one fellow suspect that he “won’t feel sorry” if the cops throw him in jail before the plan materializes, “as long as I’ve tried my best.”
On Thursday, the 24-year-old said he will try his best to one day “demonstrate my regret in actions rather than words.” His lawyers are requesting a sentence of 18 to 20 years; the Crown wants life, ensuring that if Amara is ever granted parole, he will remain under some sort of supervision until the day he dies. (Under either scenario, Amara will be eligible for a parole hearing in approximately six years, when he turns 30.)
“Your honour, I will embrace whatever sentence you give since in reality I deserve much more than a mere sentence,” said Amara, wearing a white dress shirt, a dark blue sweater vest, and a trimmed beard. “But at the same time I hope that you do not deprive me of a chance to pay for the moral debt that I still owe.”
Standing in a bulletproof prisoner’s box, Amara began his dramatic statement by apologizing for his nervous tone and quoting the Koran: “Stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God, even against your own selves.” Addressing his “fellow Canadians,” he went on to acknowledge that “many, if not all of you, will never forgive me for my actions. I have no excuses or explanations. I deserve nothing than your complete and absolute contempt. I only wrote these words to simply let you know of how regretful and sorry I feel.”
“As for the Muslims amongst you,” he continued, “I have an additional comment to make. I cannot imagine the type of embarrassment or anxiety you must have gone through in the days following my arrest. I am sure many of you received unwelcome attention and felt hopeless in trying to explain that the actions of a few were not endorsed by the community. I am sure many of you probably cursed me in your heads…I can only hope that when all of you, Muslim and non-Muslim, witness the type of man I will one day make out of myself and the type of activities I’ll be involved in, than you will perhaps contemplate accepting me once more into the fold.”
Why the change of heart? Prison, he says.
In June, after three years in solitary confinement, Amara was transferred into the general population of Toronto’s Don Jail. Fellow inmates—including an unnamed Canadian soldier who fought against insurgents Afghanistan—began to press Amara on his extremist beliefs. “Everyone found it difficult to reconcile between my charges and my humble and kind personality, thus leading the way to many discussions about the justification of terrorist acts,” he said. “At first I vigorously defended my positions, but every time I walked away I walked away with a doubt in my heart.
Despite their lack of education and ‘expertise,’ their moral and logical arguments were like pick axes that chiseled away at my ideological walls.” One of those inmates, a Jewish man, went out of his way to befriend Amara. “He once told me that had we been living in Palestine we would have probably killed each other and died failing to realize what good friends we would have made if only we had talked.”
Another fellow prisoner told Amara that he once worked as a banker on Bay Street in Toronto, and that his two brothers worked at the Exchange Tower, the plot’s primary target. “It was ironic,” Amara said. “He was more of a potential victim than anybody else, and seeing him and interacting with him made me reconsider. If somebody shows me that I’m wrong I am willing to accept it.”
Crown attorneys are not quite convinced that Amara is a changed man. In pushing for the toughest sentence possible, prosecutor Iona Jaffe reminded Justice Durno that the person sitting behind her had a “single-minded determination to commit jihadist acts” on Canadian soil. “If everything had gone occurring to plan—the plans Mr. Amara had terribly crafted—many people would have been killed.”
Although 18 suspects were rounded up in the raids, only four were actually connected to the bomb plot—and none played a larger role than Amara. “His leadership in this conspiracy weighs heavily on the scale in favour of a life sentence,” Jaffe said. “He not only knew all the details of the plot; he planned them all. He didn’t just know the quantities of the ammonium nitrate; he ordered it. He didn’t just know the targets; he selected them. He didn’t just join a terrorist group; he formed one.”
As for his sudden conversion, Jaffe offered this observation: “His reformation only took hold firmly after he was released into the general population seven months ago. His ‘de-radicalization’—if, in fact, that has occurred—occurred very recently, relative to the amount of time he diligently pursued his terrorist goal.”
Amara’s lawyer, Michael Lacey, did not try to downplay his client’s crimes. Amara absolutely deserves the “terrorist label,” he said. But in handing down his sentence, Lacey asked the judge to consider the fact that Amara pleaded guilty, accepted full responsibility for his actions, and never once “made a mockery” of the judicial process. “For some accused terrorists who are arrested, the ensuing trial becomes a spectacle, a chance to advance their extremist views on the world stage,” Lacey said. “That is not what Mr. Amara has done. The media is here listening and reporting, and Mr. Amara did not use this forum to try to get some kind of religious, extremist position out across the world. On the contrary, he has apologized, not only to all Canadians, but to all Muslims.”
Lacey also produced for the judge a recent psychiatric assessment, which portrays Amara as a confused, committed Muslim starving for direction, and whose “unmet emotional needs created a susceptibility that allowed him to be infected with an extremist ideology.”
The second of three children, Amara was born in Jordan in 1985, and—despite his eventual devotion to a radical interpretation of Islam—was baptized an Orthodox Christian, his mother’s religion. At the age of four his family moved to Saudi Arabia, where his dad worked for an oil company, although his mom regularly took the children to visit her parents in Cyprus. (Amara still speaks fluent Greek.) By Grade 4, he was living in Cyprus full-time while his father worked out the country. He attended an Arabic school, and according to the report prepared by Dr. Arif Syed, that’s when Amara “first felt converted to Islam.”
In 1997, the whole family moved the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, Ont., where Amara’s father ran a dry-cleaning business and his mother worked at a beauty salon. Before long, his parents’ marriage fell apart; Amara “turned to his practicing Muslim peer group for his source of intimacy, consistency and loyalty.” On Fridays, he gave Islamic lectures at Meadowvale High School, but as one friend told Dr. Syed, “he never mentioned jihad or politics.” As others testified, Amara was “the class clown,” not a fundamentalist.
After graduation, Amara traveled back to Saudi Arabia to apply, in person, to the Islamic studies program at the University of Medina. His application was denied—a turning point in a life that would soon be dominated by violent fantasies.
At the age of 18, he proposed to Nada Farooq, a niqab-wearing classmate whose face he had never seen. His father, a non-religious man, was so furious that he boycotted the wedding. Within a month, Amara’s new wife was pregnant with a baby girl, and he was struggling to support a new family while juggling night classes at Ryerson University. When he dropped out of school to work full-time, he felt the wrath of his dad yet again. “His father left home, gave Zakaria the keys to the car, and went to live in Dubai,” says the psychiatric report. “He has not come back to Canada ever since.”
Now working at a Canadian Tire gas station, Amara began to “transform into a different person,” Dr. Syed wrote. In one interview, Amara told the psychiatrist that he dreamed of joining the insurgency in Afghanistan because “my life was getting difficult.” Along with struggling to take care of his wife and daughter, he felt surrounded by people who did “not live up to Islamic practices, nor live up to promises of loyalty and consistency.”
The report continues: “His self-concept seemed to have hyper-identified with the cause of defending the aimless Muslims against oppression, in exclusion to all the other ways one can be of service to God. He may also have been driven by a need to be important in some way to the perceived Muslim cause.” As Amara later acknowledged to the doctor, “my major problem was lack of guidance.”
“The spiritual ideal of jihad (fighting oneself) stagnated, hardened, and sank into self-aggrandizing bravado,” Dr. Syed wrote. “The daily drudgery of working in dead-end, low-paying jobs helped to create an intellectually stunted environment. Internet jihad videos became more exciting and their causes became more urgent.”
By 2006, that urgency reached a fever pitch. Obsessed with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Amara craved revenge for the “slaughter” of innocent Muslims on the other side of the world. His plan ended on the afternoon of June 2, when heavily armed cops stormed through his front door.
Amara’s sentencing submissions included a letter from his wife, who was at home that day when the officers showed up, guns drawn. “My daughter was just eight months old when her father was taken away,” she wrote. “Now she is four years old. She prays every night that she gets to have her dad home like all other children. After all these years reflecting and contemplating, I believe my husband regrets with all his heart what he has put me and our daughter through.”
As his lawyer read the letter out loud, Amara wiped tears from his eyes. By the last paragraph, he had buried his face in his arms, weeping uncontrollably.
He was no doubt thinking what he told Dr. Syed in October: “I feel like I’ve wasted my life. My whole life I’ve messed up.”
ZAKARIA AMARA APOLOGY: FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/750838--apology-read-by-zakaria-amara
The following is the letter read by Zakaria Amara at his sentencing hearing in Brampton court on the morning of Jan. 14.
"Open letter to fellow Canadians,
"I hope my words reach you while you are in good health and fine spirits. I am certain that many, if not all of you, will never forgive me for my actions.
"I have no excuses or explanations. I deserve nothing less than your complete and absolute contempt.
"I only wrote these words to simply let you know of how regretful and sorry I feel. All I can hope for is that you are all alive and well and perhaps that day comes when I (can) demonstrate my regret in actions rather than words.
"As for the Muslims amongst you, I have an additional comment to make. I cannot imagine the type of embarrassment or anxiety you must have gone through in the days following my arrest. I am sure many of you received unwelcome attention and felt hopeless in trying to explain that the actions of a few were not endorsed by the community. I am sure many of you probably cursed at me in your heads.
"To you too, I say that the gravity of the damage I caused to you makes any excuse or apology inappropriate.
"I can only hope that when all of you, Muslim and non-Mulsim, witness the type of man I will one day make out of myself and the type of activities I'll be involved in, then you will perhaps contemplate accepting me once more into the fold."
A confessed terrorist who plotted mass murder in the name of Islam says he is a reformed man, was “lucky” to be arrested before his bombs ravaged downtown Toronto, and will accept any sentence he receives for conspiring to kill fellow Canadians.
Speaking in open court for the first time since his 2006 arrest, Zakaria Amara—the admitted ringleader of the “Toronto 18”—told a judge that he now rejects the radical religious ideology that fueled his deadly plot, and is thankful that the RCMP was watching him so closely. “I spent days upon days trying to summon words appropriate, meaningful and deep enough to express my regret and seek forgiveness for my actions,” he told Justice Bruce Durno, who will hand down a sentence on Monday. “At the end, I realized that only promises and actions could suffice. I would like to promise you and my fellow Canadians that I will use my sentence to change myself from a man of destruction to a man of construction. I promise, no matter how long it takes and how much it costs, to produce actions that will hopefully outweigh the actions that I once took towards hurting others.”
His apology—and the tears that followed later in the hearing—was a stark contrast from the old Zakaria Amara: the terrorist front man determined to bomb three targets in southern Ontario, including the Toronto Stock Exchange. Before his arrest, the tough-talking gas station attendant had built and perfected a remote-controlled detonator, ordered three tonnes of explosive fertilizer (from an undercover informant) and boasted that his attack is “gonna be kicking ass like never before.” With police wiretaps running, he told one fellow suspect that he “won’t feel sorry” if the cops throw him in jail before the plan materializes, “as long as I’ve tried my best.”
On Thursday, the 24-year-old said he will try his best to one day “demonstrate my regret in actions rather than words.” His lawyers are requesting a sentence of 18 to 20 years; the Crown wants life, ensuring that if Amara is ever granted parole, he will remain under some sort of supervision until the day he dies. (Under either scenario, Amara will be eligible for a parole hearing in approximately six years, when he turns 30.)
“Your honour, I will embrace whatever sentence you give since in reality I deserve much more than a mere sentence,” said Amara, wearing a white dress shirt, a dark blue sweater vest, and a trimmed beard. “But at the same time I hope that you do not deprive me of a chance to pay for the moral debt that I still owe.”
Standing in a bulletproof prisoner’s box, Amara began his dramatic statement by apologizing for his nervous tone and quoting the Koran: “Stand out firmly for justice as witnesses to God, even against your own selves.” Addressing his “fellow Canadians,” he went on to acknowledge that “many, if not all of you, will never forgive me for my actions. I have no excuses or explanations. I deserve nothing than your complete and absolute contempt. I only wrote these words to simply let you know of how regretful and sorry I feel.”
“As for the Muslims amongst you,” he continued, “I have an additional comment to make. I cannot imagine the type of embarrassment or anxiety you must have gone through in the days following my arrest. I am sure many of you received unwelcome attention and felt hopeless in trying to explain that the actions of a few were not endorsed by the community. I am sure many of you probably cursed me in your heads…I can only hope that when all of you, Muslim and non-Muslim, witness the type of man I will one day make out of myself and the type of activities I’ll be involved in, than you will perhaps contemplate accepting me once more into the fold.”
Why the change of heart? Prison, he says.
In June, after three years in solitary confinement, Amara was transferred into the general population of Toronto’s Don Jail. Fellow inmates—including an unnamed Canadian soldier who fought against insurgents Afghanistan—began to press Amara on his extremist beliefs. “Everyone found it difficult to reconcile between my charges and my humble and kind personality, thus leading the way to many discussions about the justification of terrorist acts,” he said. “At first I vigorously defended my positions, but every time I walked away I walked away with a doubt in my heart.
Despite their lack of education and ‘expertise,’ their moral and logical arguments were like pick axes that chiseled away at my ideological walls.” One of those inmates, a Jewish man, went out of his way to befriend Amara. “He once told me that had we been living in Palestine we would have probably killed each other and died failing to realize what good friends we would have made if only we had talked.”
Another fellow prisoner told Amara that he once worked as a banker on Bay Street in Toronto, and that his two brothers worked at the Exchange Tower, the plot’s primary target. “It was ironic,” Amara said. “He was more of a potential victim than anybody else, and seeing him and interacting with him made me reconsider. If somebody shows me that I’m wrong I am willing to accept it.”
Crown attorneys are not quite convinced that Amara is a changed man. In pushing for the toughest sentence possible, prosecutor Iona Jaffe reminded Justice Durno that the person sitting behind her had a “single-minded determination to commit jihadist acts” on Canadian soil. “If everything had gone occurring to plan—the plans Mr. Amara had terribly crafted—many people would have been killed.”
Although 18 suspects were rounded up in the raids, only four were actually connected to the bomb plot—and none played a larger role than Amara. “His leadership in this conspiracy weighs heavily on the scale in favour of a life sentence,” Jaffe said. “He not only knew all the details of the plot; he planned them all. He didn’t just know the quantities of the ammonium nitrate; he ordered it. He didn’t just know the targets; he selected them. He didn’t just join a terrorist group; he formed one.”
As for his sudden conversion, Jaffe offered this observation: “His reformation only took hold firmly after he was released into the general population seven months ago. His ‘de-radicalization’—if, in fact, that has occurred—occurred very recently, relative to the amount of time he diligently pursued his terrorist goal.”
Amara’s lawyer, Michael Lacey, did not try to downplay his client’s crimes. Amara absolutely deserves the “terrorist label,” he said. But in handing down his sentence, Lacey asked the judge to consider the fact that Amara pleaded guilty, accepted full responsibility for his actions, and never once “made a mockery” of the judicial process. “For some accused terrorists who are arrested, the ensuing trial becomes a spectacle, a chance to advance their extremist views on the world stage,” Lacey said. “That is not what Mr. Amara has done. The media is here listening and reporting, and Mr. Amara did not use this forum to try to get some kind of religious, extremist position out across the world. On the contrary, he has apologized, not only to all Canadians, but to all Muslims.”
Lacey also produced for the judge a recent psychiatric assessment, which portrays Amara as a confused, committed Muslim starving for direction, and whose “unmet emotional needs created a susceptibility that allowed him to be infected with an extremist ideology.”
The second of three children, Amara was born in Jordan in 1985, and—despite his eventual devotion to a radical interpretation of Islam—was baptized an Orthodox Christian, his mother’s religion. At the age of four his family moved to Saudi Arabia, where his dad worked for an oil company, although his mom regularly took the children to visit her parents in Cyprus. (Amara still speaks fluent Greek.) By Grade 4, he was living in Cyprus full-time while his father worked out the country. He attended an Arabic school, and according to the report prepared by Dr. Arif Syed, that’s when Amara “first felt converted to Islam.”
In 1997, the whole family moved the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, Ont., where Amara’s father ran a dry-cleaning business and his mother worked at a beauty salon. Before long, his parents’ marriage fell apart; Amara “turned to his practicing Muslim peer group for his source of intimacy, consistency and loyalty.” On Fridays, he gave Islamic lectures at Meadowvale High School, but as one friend told Dr. Syed, “he never mentioned jihad or politics.” As others testified, Amara was “the class clown,” not a fundamentalist.
After graduation, Amara traveled back to Saudi Arabia to apply, in person, to the Islamic studies program at the University of Medina. His application was denied—a turning point in a life that would soon be dominated by violent fantasies.
At the age of 18, he proposed to Nada Farooq, a niqab-wearing classmate whose face he had never seen. His father, a non-religious man, was so furious that he boycotted the wedding. Within a month, Amara’s new wife was pregnant with a baby girl, and he was struggling to support a new family while juggling night classes at Ryerson University. When he dropped out of school to work full-time, he felt the wrath of his dad yet again. “His father left home, gave Zakaria the keys to the car, and went to live in Dubai,” says the psychiatric report. “He has not come back to Canada ever since.”
Now working at a Canadian Tire gas station, Amara began to “transform into a different person,” Dr. Syed wrote. In one interview, Amara told the psychiatrist that he dreamed of joining the insurgency in Afghanistan because “my life was getting difficult.” Along with struggling to take care of his wife and daughter, he felt surrounded by people who did “not live up to Islamic practices, nor live up to promises of loyalty and consistency.”
The report continues: “His self-concept seemed to have hyper-identified with the cause of defending the aimless Muslims against oppression, in exclusion to all the other ways one can be of service to God. He may also have been driven by a need to be important in some way to the perceived Muslim cause.” As Amara later acknowledged to the doctor, “my major problem was lack of guidance.”
“The spiritual ideal of jihad (fighting oneself) stagnated, hardened, and sank into self-aggrandizing bravado,” Dr. Syed wrote. “The daily drudgery of working in dead-end, low-paying jobs helped to create an intellectually stunted environment. Internet jihad videos became more exciting and their causes became more urgent.”
By 2006, that urgency reached a fever pitch. Obsessed with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Amara craved revenge for the “slaughter” of innocent Muslims on the other side of the world. His plan ended on the afternoon of June 2, when heavily armed cops stormed through his front door.
Amara’s sentencing submissions included a letter from his wife, who was at home that day when the officers showed up, guns drawn. “My daughter was just eight months old when her father was taken away,” she wrote. “Now she is four years old. She prays every night that she gets to have her dad home like all other children. After all these years reflecting and contemplating, I believe my husband regrets with all his heart what he has put me and our daughter through.”
As his lawyer read the letter out loud, Amara wiped tears from his eyes. By the last paragraph, he had buried his face in his arms, weeping uncontrollably.
He was no doubt thinking what he told Dr. Syed in October: “I feel like I’ve wasted my life. My whole life I’ve messed up.”
ZAKARIA AMARA APOLOGY: FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/750838--apology-read-by-zakaria-amara
The following is the letter read by Zakaria Amara at his sentencing hearing in Brampton court on the morning of Jan. 14.
"Open letter to fellow Canadians,
"I hope my words reach you while you are in good health and fine spirits. I am certain that many, if not all of you, will never forgive me for my actions.
"I have no excuses or explanations. I deserve nothing less than your complete and absolute contempt.
"I only wrote these words to simply let you know of how regretful and sorry I feel. All I can hope for is that you are all alive and well and perhaps that day comes when I (can) demonstrate my regret in actions rather than words.
"As for the Muslims amongst you, I have an additional comment to make. I cannot imagine the type of embarrassment or anxiety you must have gone through in the days following my arrest. I am sure many of you received unwelcome attention and felt hopeless in trying to explain that the actions of a few were not endorsed by the community. I am sure many of you probably cursed at me in your heads.
"To you too, I say that the gravity of the damage I caused to you makes any excuse or apology inappropriate.
"I can only hope that when all of you, Muslim and non-Mulsim, witness the type of man I will one day make out of myself and the type of activities I'll be involved in, then you will perhaps contemplate accepting me once more into the fold."
Friday, December 25, 2009
SAAD GAYA ASKS FOR LENIENCY
*** Saad Gaya received 12 years with 7 1/2 years credit for pre-trial custody leaving him with 4 1/2 years. MS ***
Former Mac student accused in terror trial apologizes, asks for leniency
December 23, 2009
Isabel Teotonio
Toronto Star
BRAMPTON, Ont. — An Oakville man who confessed to being part of a homegrown terror cell that was plotting to blow up truck bombs in Toronto apologized to a Brampton court on Wednesday for his “shameful crime.”
Addressing the court at the end of his sentencing hearing, Saad Gaya said he was “extremely grateful” the scheme “did not progress any further” and asked for leniency.
“Some people believe that I must have been driven by a dark ideology of hatred, nihilism and destruction,” said the member of the so-called Toronto 18, requesting people not brand him a “terrorist.”
He said he was “politically naive” and believed the group’s actions would result in Canada withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
Gaya, 22, said he didn’t know the intended targets were the Toronto Stock Exchange and the downtown offices of Canada’s spy agency.
He said he initially thought a police station was the target, but was later told it was a military base around the Greater Toronto Area, adding he believed no one would be hurt.
Gaya is among 18 people charged in 2006. He was arrested while unloading a delivery truck filled with three tonnes of bags marked ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
The plot involved using three times more ammonium nitrate than was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.
Gaya has pleaded guilty to belonging to a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion that would likely cause serious bodily harm.
The Crown is seeking a sentence of up to 18 years. The prosecution has argued Gaya was a willing participant and should have known a plot involving three tonnes of explosives would have caused serious harm or death — and if not, he was willfully blind.
But the defence argued Gaya was duped and didn’t know the plan was to unleash a series of explosives deadlier than the London subway bombings of 2005.
If the judge rules there was intent to kill, the defence suggested a sentence in the range of 9 to 15 years. If there was no intent, an appropriate sentence would be five to eight years, says the defence.
According to a psychiatric report by Drs. Steven Cohen and Lisa Ramshaw, Gaya’s motivation for joining the group “did not flow from antisociality, impulsivity or psychopathy.
It stemmed from “his religious beliefs, his sympathy toward the suffering ”limbs“ of the Muslim nation and in his perceived sense of duty to stand up to the Canadian government toward change in foreign policy.”
While there is no evidence the former McMaster University science student poses a significant risk to himself or others in the short-term, the doctors noted that based on his past behaviour “risk over the long-term period cannot ruled out.”
*** Did not know whether it was a police station or military base but thinks no one would have been killed? And this is the same guy who got 90's in class then a scholarship to MacMaster in Engineering and yet, did not think anyone would die in a 1-ton bomb explosion. Riiiiiight. ***
Try this version from the Toronto Sun:
Terrorist pleads for leniency
'Irrational decision' to aid T.O. plot
By IAN ROBERTSON, TORONTO SUN
Last Updated: 24th December 2009, 3:43am
BRAMPTON -- A "Toronto 18" recruit in a terror plot labelled the Battle of Toronto -- a plan to bomb the CSIS building, the Toronto Stock Exchange and a military base -- apologized yesterday for betraying his fellow Canadians.
Appealing for leniency at a pre-sentencing hearing, Saad Gaya, 22, said: "What I was a part of was absolutely wrong.
"Not only have I let myself down, but I have also let down everyone whom I have ever been associated," the slender science student who was raised in Oakville and Toronto read in a clear, steady voice.
Apologizing "for my irrational decision," he told Mr. Justice Bruce Durno: "I should have realized I was playing with fire.
"I was young and politically naive."
Insisting he was not raised in a "hate-filled environment" or brainwashed, Gaya said: "This is not why my parents sacrificed and worked so hard for and this is not what my teachers and professors dedicated their time for."
Arrested in June 2006 after helping unload two tonnes of fertilizer bought for use as explosives, Gaya pleaded guilty in September to intending to cause an explosion to benefit a terrorist group.
PULL TROOPS
Prosecutors have quoted al-Qaida-inspired organizer Zakaria Amara telling recruits bombings would influence Canada to pull troops from Afghanistan.
During final submissions, prosecutor Croft Michaelson said Gaya was "perhaps a naive man perhaps upset by events overseas," who showed "a willingness to participate in urban terrorism.
"He was prepared to wage war on the country of his birth," the Crown attorney said.
Quoting from an interrogation transcript, Michaelson said Gaya told a detective Amara promised he would become "a hero, like in the eyes of God," that preparing bombs was "our duty."
Lawyer Paul Slansky said his client would have quit if he thought people would die.
SUICIDE BOMBERS
Amara, 24, who pleaded guilty in October to knowingly participating in a terrorist group, plus intending to cause an explosion to benefit a terrorist group, intended to turn his team into truck-driving suicide bombers.
Two psychiatrists warned that Gaya -- whose parents and about 40 men and women sat silently throughout the proceedings -- might participate in future extremist violence, Michaelson said.
"He was motivated by his religious beliefs and his sympathy over the suffering limbs of the Muslim nation," he said, quoting the psychiatrists.
"That's the definition of an extremist," Michaelson said, asking Durno for a 17-year sentence.
Saudi-born Saad Khalid, 23, of Erin Mills, who was also arrested after unloading the fertilizer, was previously sentenced to 14 years.
Slansky argued Gaya should get a lower term since his involvement was less.
Gaya will be sentenced Jan. 18 -- the same day as Amara.
Others, whose names cannot be published yet, await trial.
IAN.ROBERTSON@SUNMEDIA.CA
Former Mac student accused in terror trial apologizes, asks for leniency
December 23, 2009
Isabel Teotonio
Toronto Star
BRAMPTON, Ont. — An Oakville man who confessed to being part of a homegrown terror cell that was plotting to blow up truck bombs in Toronto apologized to a Brampton court on Wednesday for his “shameful crime.”
Addressing the court at the end of his sentencing hearing, Saad Gaya said he was “extremely grateful” the scheme “did not progress any further” and asked for leniency.
“Some people believe that I must have been driven by a dark ideology of hatred, nihilism and destruction,” said the member of the so-called Toronto 18, requesting people not brand him a “terrorist.”
He said he was “politically naive” and believed the group’s actions would result in Canada withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
Gaya, 22, said he didn’t know the intended targets were the Toronto Stock Exchange and the downtown offices of Canada’s spy agency.
He said he initially thought a police station was the target, but was later told it was a military base around the Greater Toronto Area, adding he believed no one would be hurt.
Gaya is among 18 people charged in 2006. He was arrested while unloading a delivery truck filled with three tonnes of bags marked ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
The plot involved using three times more ammonium nitrate than was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.
Gaya has pleaded guilty to belonging to a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion that would likely cause serious bodily harm.
The Crown is seeking a sentence of up to 18 years. The prosecution has argued Gaya was a willing participant and should have known a plot involving three tonnes of explosives would have caused serious harm or death — and if not, he was willfully blind.
But the defence argued Gaya was duped and didn’t know the plan was to unleash a series of explosives deadlier than the London subway bombings of 2005.
If the judge rules there was intent to kill, the defence suggested a sentence in the range of 9 to 15 years. If there was no intent, an appropriate sentence would be five to eight years, says the defence.
According to a psychiatric report by Drs. Steven Cohen and Lisa Ramshaw, Gaya’s motivation for joining the group “did not flow from antisociality, impulsivity or psychopathy.
It stemmed from “his religious beliefs, his sympathy toward the suffering ”limbs“ of the Muslim nation and in his perceived sense of duty to stand up to the Canadian government toward change in foreign policy.”
While there is no evidence the former McMaster University science student poses a significant risk to himself or others in the short-term, the doctors noted that based on his past behaviour “risk over the long-term period cannot ruled out.”
*** Did not know whether it was a police station or military base but thinks no one would have been killed? And this is the same guy who got 90's in class then a scholarship to MacMaster in Engineering and yet, did not think anyone would die in a 1-ton bomb explosion. Riiiiiight. ***
Try this version from the Toronto Sun:
Terrorist pleads for leniency
'Irrational decision' to aid T.O. plot
By IAN ROBERTSON, TORONTO SUN
Last Updated: 24th December 2009, 3:43am
BRAMPTON -- A "Toronto 18" recruit in a terror plot labelled the Battle of Toronto -- a plan to bomb the CSIS building, the Toronto Stock Exchange and a military base -- apologized yesterday for betraying his fellow Canadians.
Appealing for leniency at a pre-sentencing hearing, Saad Gaya, 22, said: "What I was a part of was absolutely wrong.
"Not only have I let myself down, but I have also let down everyone whom I have ever been associated," the slender science student who was raised in Oakville and Toronto read in a clear, steady voice.
Apologizing "for my irrational decision," he told Mr. Justice Bruce Durno: "I should have realized I was playing with fire.
"I was young and politically naive."
Insisting he was not raised in a "hate-filled environment" or brainwashed, Gaya said: "This is not why my parents sacrificed and worked so hard for and this is not what my teachers and professors dedicated their time for."
Arrested in June 2006 after helping unload two tonnes of fertilizer bought for use as explosives, Gaya pleaded guilty in September to intending to cause an explosion to benefit a terrorist group.
PULL TROOPS
Prosecutors have quoted al-Qaida-inspired organizer Zakaria Amara telling recruits bombings would influence Canada to pull troops from Afghanistan.
During final submissions, prosecutor Croft Michaelson said Gaya was "perhaps a naive man perhaps upset by events overseas," who showed "a willingness to participate in urban terrorism.
"He was prepared to wage war on the country of his birth," the Crown attorney said.
Quoting from an interrogation transcript, Michaelson said Gaya told a detective Amara promised he would become "a hero, like in the eyes of God," that preparing bombs was "our duty."
Lawyer Paul Slansky said his client would have quit if he thought people would die.
SUICIDE BOMBERS
Amara, 24, who pleaded guilty in October to knowingly participating in a terrorist group, plus intending to cause an explosion to benefit a terrorist group, intended to turn his team into truck-driving suicide bombers.
Two psychiatrists warned that Gaya -- whose parents and about 40 men and women sat silently throughout the proceedings -- might participate in future extremist violence, Michaelson said.
"He was motivated by his religious beliefs and his sympathy over the suffering limbs of the Muslim nation," he said, quoting the psychiatrists.
"That's the definition of an extremist," Michaelson said, asking Durno for a 17-year sentence.
Saudi-born Saad Khalid, 23, of Erin Mills, who was also arrested after unloading the fertilizer, was previously sentenced to 14 years.
Slansky argued Gaya should get a lower term since his involvement was less.
Gaya will be sentenced Jan. 18 -- the same day as Amara.
Others, whose names cannot be published yet, await trial.
IAN.ROBERTSON@SUNMEDIA.CA
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Prisons as Breeding Ground for Islamist Extremism
Something is missing from the debate over prison reform: What is Canada to do about the influx of incarcerated Islamist terrorists?
Since March, 2009, seven suspected Canadian terrorists, including Momin Khawaja, Said Namouh and five members of the Toronto 18, have been prosecuted. Another half-dozen trials are ongoing.
Canadians should commend the RCMP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, local police and various branches of the judiciary for successfully tracking, foiling and indicting these individuals. But imprisoning terrorists poses a challenge.
The associated risk is prison radicalization, wherein members of the general prison population are introduced to and convert to militant interpretations of radical Islam. Already, Crown prosecutors have revealed that one Toronto 18 member, Ali Dirie, “took an active role in recruiting other inmates to adopt extreme jihadi beliefs” while under remand.
Prisons are filled with young and often dangerous individuals with a predisposition for anti-social behaviour. Some consider themselves victims of society and may be especially susceptible to ideologies that espouse retribution.
International trends suggest that prison radicalization and recruitment are common. Richard Reid, the 2001 shoe bomber, and Muktar Said Ibrahim, involved with the second and failed London attacks in 2005, were radicalized while serving time for petty crimes in Britain. Jamal Ahmidan, a leader of the 2004 Madrid bombings, was radicalized while serving time for theft. Mohamed Achraf, while serving time for credit-card fraud in Spain, established the Martyrs for Morocco, recruiting nearly 20 inmates for attacks on Spain's National Court. Safe Bourada created the Partisans of Victory while serving time in France and recruited convicts for attacks in Paris. Jose Padilla, currently serving a 17-year terrorism conviction, and Michael Finton, arrested last month while allegedly attempting to detonate a bomb in Illinois, were both introduced to radical Islam while serving time on non-terrorism-related charges. And Kevin James founded the Assembly of Authentic Islam behind bars in California, recruiting two fellow inmates for attacks in Los Angeles.
Preventing similar outcomes in Canada will take five steps.
First, we need to better understand how extremist ideologies spread within prison. Lessons are to be found from existing research on prison gangs and the radicalization of white supremacists. We can also follow the lead of other countries and establish a national counter-radicalization task force. By bringing together academics, policy-makers and community experts, trends can be monitored and countered.
Second, extremists need to be segregated from the general prison population. We should ensure that there are enough qualified imams for Canadian prisons to eliminate the risk that radical inmates will use a dearth of leadership to captivate a susceptible audience, spread violent views and recruit. Lectures and courses could be offered to ensure that newly observant inmates receive a full, rather than selective, reading of their new faith and practice. Also, ensuring that Muslim inmates have what they need to practise their faith, from halal food to prayer halls, might help to avert grievances.
Third, prison officials need to be trained to recognize and impede radicalization. We should imitate the French and publish a prison guide that traces the indicators of radicalization. Intelligence on radicals should be collected and properly shared between prisons. Ensuring the Correctional Service of Canada has the means to co-ordinate with other agencies might also require establishing new partnerships. For instance, California's Joint Regional Intelligence Center puts local prison officials in constant contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Los Angeles Police Department and Department of Homeland Security.
Fourth, specific inmates should be tracked and monitored as they move through the correctional system. If required, they should be contained. The British dispersal strategy, which spreads convicted terrorists around the country, and France's use of displacement, which impedes criminal bonding by moving radicals around, are two suggestions.
Finally, Canada should follow through after prisoner release. Helping inmates reintegrate into society will impede radical groups outside prison from preying on former convicts. Some inmates should be required, upon release, to enroll in de-radicalization programs, such as the Specialized De-Radicalization Intervention program in Toronto. And those who have renounced violence should be encouraged to help turn others away from terrorism.
With terrorists heading to Canadian jails, this is the time to take action – before they have time to recruit.
Alex Wilner is a fellow in defence and security with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax and a senior researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/we-must-make-sure-that-prison-isnt-terrorism-school/article1329820/
Since March, 2009, seven suspected Canadian terrorists, including Momin Khawaja, Said Namouh and five members of the Toronto 18, have been prosecuted. Another half-dozen trials are ongoing.
Canadians should commend the RCMP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, local police and various branches of the judiciary for successfully tracking, foiling and indicting these individuals. But imprisoning terrorists poses a challenge.
The associated risk is prison radicalization, wherein members of the general prison population are introduced to and convert to militant interpretations of radical Islam. Already, Crown prosecutors have revealed that one Toronto 18 member, Ali Dirie, “took an active role in recruiting other inmates to adopt extreme jihadi beliefs” while under remand.
Prisons are filled with young and often dangerous individuals with a predisposition for anti-social behaviour. Some consider themselves victims of society and may be especially susceptible to ideologies that espouse retribution.
International trends suggest that prison radicalization and recruitment are common. Richard Reid, the 2001 shoe bomber, and Muktar Said Ibrahim, involved with the second and failed London attacks in 2005, were radicalized while serving time for petty crimes in Britain. Jamal Ahmidan, a leader of the 2004 Madrid bombings, was radicalized while serving time for theft. Mohamed Achraf, while serving time for credit-card fraud in Spain, established the Martyrs for Morocco, recruiting nearly 20 inmates for attacks on Spain's National Court. Safe Bourada created the Partisans of Victory while serving time in France and recruited convicts for attacks in Paris. Jose Padilla, currently serving a 17-year terrorism conviction, and Michael Finton, arrested last month while allegedly attempting to detonate a bomb in Illinois, were both introduced to radical Islam while serving time on non-terrorism-related charges. And Kevin James founded the Assembly of Authentic Islam behind bars in California, recruiting two fellow inmates for attacks in Los Angeles.
Preventing similar outcomes in Canada will take five steps.
First, we need to better understand how extremist ideologies spread within prison. Lessons are to be found from existing research on prison gangs and the radicalization of white supremacists. We can also follow the lead of other countries and establish a national counter-radicalization task force. By bringing together academics, policy-makers and community experts, trends can be monitored and countered.
Second, extremists need to be segregated from the general prison population. We should ensure that there are enough qualified imams for Canadian prisons to eliminate the risk that radical inmates will use a dearth of leadership to captivate a susceptible audience, spread violent views and recruit. Lectures and courses could be offered to ensure that newly observant inmates receive a full, rather than selective, reading of their new faith and practice. Also, ensuring that Muslim inmates have what they need to practise their faith, from halal food to prayer halls, might help to avert grievances.
Third, prison officials need to be trained to recognize and impede radicalization. We should imitate the French and publish a prison guide that traces the indicators of radicalization. Intelligence on radicals should be collected and properly shared between prisons. Ensuring the Correctional Service of Canada has the means to co-ordinate with other agencies might also require establishing new partnerships. For instance, California's Joint Regional Intelligence Center puts local prison officials in constant contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Los Angeles Police Department and Department of Homeland Security.
Fourth, specific inmates should be tracked and monitored as they move through the correctional system. If required, they should be contained. The British dispersal strategy, which spreads convicted terrorists around the country, and France's use of displacement, which impedes criminal bonding by moving radicals around, are two suggestions.
Finally, Canada should follow through after prisoner release. Helping inmates reintegrate into society will impede radical groups outside prison from preying on former convicts. Some inmates should be required, upon release, to enroll in de-radicalization programs, such as the Specialized De-Radicalization Intervention program in Toronto. And those who have renounced violence should be encouraged to help turn others away from terrorism.
With terrorists heading to Canadian jails, this is the time to take action – before they have time to recruit.
Alex Wilner is a fellow in defence and security with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax and a senior researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/we-must-make-sure-that-prison-isnt-terrorism-school/article1329820/
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