‘Hug a terrorist’ program hopes to stop spread of extremism
By Gemma Wilson August 8, 2017 | 8:27pm
As governments around the world scramble to stop the spread of radicalization and terror attacks one country is going against the grain and trying something different.
In Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, police have set up a program referred to by some as the “hug a terrorist” model of de-radicalization, t.
They are trying to steer those who have been radicalized down a different path by offering them kindness.
Police told Dateline that after receiving numerous calls from parents whose children had fled to Syria they knew they had to do things differently.
“We could prosecute them all if we can find evidence, however those we couldn’t prosecute, what should we do about them?” Superintendent Allan Aarslev said.
Police also realized that many Muslims whose parents were born overseas felt like outcasts in society and this was driving them to extremism.
The program in action
Dateline reporter Evan Williams spoke to Jamal*, who almost became a terrorist.
When Jamal aggressively defended Islam during a high school debate his teacher interpreted something he said as a threat directed at another student. The school referred him to the police and he ended up getting suspended from school.
Despite having not broken the law Jamal felt like police were treating him as a criminal.
His extremist views began to develop and he started spending more time at his mosque, talking with a new group of friends about jihad.
At one point he thought about fleeing Aarhus.
“In my mind I was like, ‘they treated me as a terrorist. If they want a terrorist, they will get a terrorist’,” he said.
But then a police officer called him and apologized, saying his case had been handled poorly, and asked if he would meet with a Muslim mentor.
Mentors are key to the Aarhus program.
Despite his initial suspicions, he had several meetings with his mentor and spoke about the difficulties of being Muslim in Denmark.
Eventually Jamal began to reconsider his views and moved away from his extreme thoughts.
But not everyone is a fan of this new method. Danish politician Naser Khader, a Muslim born in Syria, says it sends the wrong message.
“Go out and do something criminal, be jihadis, you will get a lot of privilege from the society. That’s wrong in my opinion.”
Re: Denmark: ‘Hug a terrorist’ program hopes to stop spread of extremism
What a load of rubbish. They try to downplay and get away such feelings from those guys, by trying to give them medication against for example headache. What i mean by this is, they try to fix the symptom but not try to fix the root-cause of it. When the pain (symptom) is gone, it will occur later on if again treated, later on again it will occur. It will never go away until you treat the root-cause of it.
What is the root-cause of this all? Politicians. Go throw politicians in jails to start with. Just look at Tony Blair, they("justice" system) are DEFENDING him, while EVERYTHING (including western born citizens) is pointing at that he is a war-criminal. This shows the people in charge are the ones responsible for radicalization of the youth of today aka ROOT-CAUSE of it all.
However looking at it, it rather looks like they will not go away until dajjal arrives aka anti-christ. As it will be kind of very easy to gather support for his evil plan by just going against these politicians. Who is against politicians is automatically branded as "good"..
Good video to sum it up..
Last edited by Simple_Person; 08-10-2017 at 08:01 AM.
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