Money Talks
April 29th, 2007
By Michael van der Galien
It seems that Saudi Arabia has learned one important lesson the last couple of years: money talks.
The Saudi daily Al-Watan reported, citing an anonymous security source, that the Saudi interior ministry has spent over 115 million riyals over the last three years in financial aid for eligible prisoners and their families. The source stated that the aid given to the prisoners goes towards payment of debts, assisting family members in housing and health care, financing prisoners’ weddings, and purchasing cars after they complete the program and are released. He added that prisoners’ families that are needy receive monthly payments of 2,000-3,000 riyals.
Dr. Muhammad Al-Najimi, member of the counseling committee and of the Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) told Al-Watan that over 1,000 youths have already been released from prison after completing the counseling program, titled “Confronting the Youths, Discussing Their Extremist Views with Them and Convincing Them to Renounce Them.†Addressing the topic of the financial incentives, he said that “80%- 90% or even more [of the prisoners who participated in the program] have given up their extremist views thanks to the financial support provided to their families by the state. This support,†he added, “has a significant positive effect on the prisoners themselves, as evident from the fact that most of them join the counseling program of their own volition, and some have asked to rejoin it after their family members visited them and informed them that the Interior Ministry was looking after all [the family’s] needs.â€
Al-Najimi told the Saudi daily Al-Madina that some of the program participants were returned to prison after their release when it became apparent that they were still holding extremist views. He specified that “nine people belonging to the misguided group were brought back to prison [about] a year or eighteen months after their release, since it was proved that they had returned to their misguided views and had not relinquished them.â€
What works works. I am sure that some people will object to programs like this one but the important thing is that it works. Of course, as Jules points out, “I’d be happier if they’d just stop paying them to be terrorists in the first place. You know, stop the flow of $$$ to radical imams and mosques, madrassas, Iraqi car bomb factories, that kind of thing.”
That would make a lot of people happier, and it should be part of the war on terrorism - of course - but that will quite simply never completely do the trick. The reason: one cannot possibly stop all the money flows.
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Terrorism, Saudi Arabia, War On Terror. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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