This much-touted program is actually a dismal failure:”These programs may also fail to keep determined extremists from re-engaging in terrorism following their release. When IS claimed credit for a suicide bombing last October at an Ismaili mosque in the southern Saudi city of Najran that killed two and injured 25, the bomber was described in mainstream accounts as a graduate of the Mohammed bin Nayef Center. In September 2014, Saudi police arrested 88 suspected al Qaeda operatives; 59 of them, according to a CBS News report, had gone through the reform regimen before their release. Several months later, 47 of the 77 individuals detained for their alleged connection to an Islamic State attack on a Saudi Shiite mosque were found to be former inmates of the center…”
None of this is surprising, since the Saudis actually hold and propagate the same version of Islam as that which is held by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
“The Problem With Saudi Arabia’s ‘Terrorist’ Re-education,” by David Andrew Weinberg, Eric Eikenberry and James Suzano, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, February 16, 2016:
…On Dec. 9, 2015, progressive Saudis celebrated the release of Mohammed al-Bajadi, a highly regarded human rights activist who had been imprisoned since 2011. Bajadi co-founded the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), which documented human rights abuses while advocating for significant governing reforms, including the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, before its dissolution by court order in March 2013. Authorities imprisoned him on a number of charges, among them founding an unlicensed organization and defaming Saudi Arabia’s reputation. Amnesty International has labeled him a “prisoner of conscience.” But other well-sourced Saudis claimed that his path to release wasn’t quite so direct. Multiple members of the Saudi reformist community, and Al-Bahrain Al-Youm, a Gulf-focused news agency, wrote that he underwent a pre-release stay in al-munasiha, or “counseling.” Saudi human rights defenders told us that Bajadi received this counseling at the Mohammed bin Nayef Center for Counseling and Care, the kingdom’s showcase terrorist rehabilitation center.
Established in 2006, the center is a feather in the cap for its namesake, the current crown prince and interior minister, who parlayed a campaign to root out domestic al Qaeda cells in the mid-2000s into favored access to the Obama administration. Under the guidance of the Interior Ministry, religious militants and their sympathizers at the center receive ideological counseling in the form of direct re-education from — and structured debate with — approved Islamic scholars. Additionally, the center provides prisoners with psychological care and vocational training, with the aim of eventually reintegrating the onetime extremists into Saudi society.
Saudi officials use the center as a PR tool to burnish the kingdom’s counterterrorism credentials, though the program has occasionally met with skepticism. A 2009 piece in Time described it as the “Betty Ford Center for terrorists,” and in 2015 the New York Post portrayed its appointments as “cushy.”
A more substantive critique, articulated in a 2010 Rand report, noted that the program is heavy on the “ideology” and light on the “re-education.” The program’s counselors reportedly seek less to disabuse imprisoned militants of their hard-line views than to reinforce the primacy of the Saudi state in determining the appropriate use of violence.
These programs may also fail to keep determined extremists from re-engaging in terrorism following their release. When IS claimed credit for a suicide bombing last October at an Ismaili mosque in the southern Saudi city of Najran that killed two and injured 25, the bomber was described in mainstream accounts as a graduate of the Mohammed bin Nayef Center. In September 2014, Saudi police arrested 88 suspected al Qaeda operatives; 59 of them, according to a CBS News report, had gone through the reform regimen before their release. Several months later, 47 of the 77 individuals detained for their alleged connection to an Islamic State attack on a Saudi Shiite mosque were found to be former inmates of the center, according to a member of Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council. The figures can be read as an embarrassing admission by the government and a worrying indictment of the center’s methods and effectiveness….