ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA – The Indonesian National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) Expert Group views ASEAN and Australia’s cooperation in the de-radicalization and reintegration program as being able to suppress terrorism in Indonesia as a whole.
“This program will be able to embrace our compatriots who have gone astray to return to society and rebuild their lives on the right path,” said member of the Indonesian BNPT Expert Group for International Cooperation, Darmansjah Djumala in an official statement in Jakarta, Saturday, June 8 2024.
With the trend of involvement of women and children in acts of violence and terrorism, he hopes that empowering teenagers in deradicalization programs in the form of increasing technical expertise in certain fields will prevent them from falling into the trap of going astray that leads to acts of terrorism.
BNPT Indonesia held the 20th ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) Conference on Counter Terrorism and the 3rd ASEAN-Australia Meeting on Counter-Terrorism Dialogue in Jakarta on 5-6 June 2024.
Djumala revealed that the conference had succeeded in approving two capacity building programs, namely the Workshop on Good Practice Approaches for the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Foreign Terrorist Fighters and their Families and the Workshop on Good Practice Approaches to Empower Youth and Enhance their Capacity to Prevent the Rise of Radicalization and Violent Extremism.
Sponsored by the Australian government, he said, both programs focus on efforts to exchange information and best practices in reintegration, rehabilitation, deradicalization and repatriation programs for convicts of criminal acts of terrorism as well as assisting ASEAN members in empowering teenagers so that they do not become victims of radicalization and acts of violence.
He appreciated Australia’s initiative to create a deradicalization and reintegration program for terrorism convicts into society. Overall, he continued, the two meetings discussed progress in implementing cooperation in the field of counter-terrorism, both internally between ASEAN members and between ASEAN and Australia.
Djumala detailed that the conference, which was attended by delegations from ASEAN member countries and Timor Leste, discussed the national policies of each ASEAN member in the field of countering terrorism, especially in implementing the ASEAN Plan of Action in overcoming radicalization and acts of violence in accordance with the Bali Work Plan 2019-2025.
At the ASEAN-Australia dialogue forum, progress was discussed in implementing ASEAN-Australia cooperation in the rehabilitation and integration program for former convicts and foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) as well as youth empowerment programs to avoid radicalization and acts of violence. (ATN)
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