GROZNY: Mother offive Zalina Gabibulayeva says she was "tricked" into joining thejihadists in Syria five years ago. Now, repentant and repatriated to Russia'sChechnya, she goes into schools to teach others of the dangers of extremism.Countries around the world are grappling with the question of how to treatcitizens who travelled to the Islamic State "caliphate" and havesince decided to return.
That problem isfelt particularly keenly in Russia, which has seen thousands of people leave tofight alongside jihadists in Syria, according to President Vladimir Putin.While some Western nations have stripped IS recruits of citizenship or bannedthem from coming back, Russia has actively repatriated women andchildren-though the return of women was suspended more than a year ago oversecurity concerns.
Most of Russia'sIS recruits came from Muslim-majority Caucasus republics such as Chechnya, thesite of two bloody separatist conflicts with Moscow in the 1990s and nownotorious for human rights abuses. The republic however has welcomed in womenlike Gabibulayeva-with the expectation some go to work to prevent young Muslimsfrom becoming radicalized.
"We'reuseful. We can tell the new generation about what happened to us, so they don'tmake the same mistakes we did," the 38-year-old says as her two youngestchildren play on the floor of her flat in regional capital Grozny. Wearing aleopard-print khimar veil covering her head and body, she describes visitingschools or colleges a couple of times a week across Chechnya and neighboringrepublic Ingushetia. There she tells young people how she fell for propagandafrom the Islamic State group before her family moved to the"caliphate" and found "cruelty, horror...it had nothing to dowith Islam".
'To show theyrepent'
Gabibulayeva wasalready widowed when she went to Syria with her children, but married aMacedonian there after discovering discrimination against women without ahusband. Later the pair tried to escape via Iraq, where he was arrested and shewas sent to a refugee camp, from which she was eventually brought back toRussia. Gabibulayeva moved to Chechnya after receiving a suspended sentence inher native republic of Dagestan.
While usingformer members of extremist groups in education is not unusual, analysts saidthis was the first such schools program they were aware of using returnees fromthe Islamic State. "It's very difficult for (the women) to talk abouttheir experience but we get them to understand it's a way to show theyrepent," says Kheda Saratova, who sits on the rights council of Chechnya'sauthoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Saratova-whomanages repatriation efforts with Kadyrov and Moscow's backing-said youngpeople were turned off by traditional lecturing about the dangers of extremism."But when someone appears before them to say in detail how they wereradicalized, what they did there, how they managed to escape...they see thereal picture, the real face of this terrorist organization."
Showcase
In a video fromone of the classes, another returnee's voice cracks as she describes the painshe caused her family by going to IS. "There were special groups whotaught children how to fight, they treated it as a game, they taught them howto shoot," the woman tells the class of Grozny teenagers. Saratova hopesRussian federal authorities will remove their ban on repatriating women fromSyria and Iraq.
The activist saysaround 200 women and children have already been brought back, and she isplanning a trip to collect more children of Russian families. "Eventuallythey will come back to their countries-especially the children. But in whatcapacity?" she said. Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, director of the independentConflict Analysis and Prevention Centre, said in some ways the initiative was a"showcase" to balance out reports of rights abuses from Chechnya.
At the same timeshe believes the use of such personal experience "is considered to be oneof the most effective ways of trying to ideologically counter terrorism.""It's not easy to do because usually in democratic states you can't pushpeople to speak-you have to ask for their consent and most are reluctant to doit" because of psychological difficulties, stigma or personal risk.
Fenna Keijzer ofthe European Union's Radicalisation Awareness Network said similar educationprojects in other countries tended to use the experience of people who had beenlonger out of extremist environments. Saratova insisted that the five womeninvolved in the program, which has reached around 600 young people over thelast year and is seeking support to continue, took part voluntarily. But shesuggested there was an element of quid pro quo in the arrangement. "Youhave to pay for everything in this life," she said.- AFP