Yemeni jihadist rehabilitation program

In January 2009, the President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh announced plans to start a new Yemeni jihadist rehabilitation program similar to the Saudi jihadist rehabilitation program.[1] According to Michelle Shephard, reporting for the Toronto Star in September 2009, Yemen had been an innovator in jihadist rehabilitation, with an effort led by the judge Hamoud al-Hitar, called the "Committee for Religious Dialogue". Shephard wrote in September 2009 that she found no sign of the new program during a recent visit.

Shephard wrote that the earlier jihadist rehabilitation program had been shut down in 2005 due to a lack of funds and lack of interest. She interviewed al-Hitar and Nasser al-Bahri, one of the program's more well-known graduates.[1] Al-Bahri and his brother-in-law, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, long held as detainees in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, were featured in the film documentary The Oath (2010) by the American filmmaker Laura Poitras.

Al-Bahri said that his meetings with al-Hitar were "tainted" because they took place in prison, and were under police surveillance. Shephard wrote that, using the term used by those who study rehabilitation of jihadists, al-Bahri was not "deradicalized" but rather "disengaged".[1]

The Economist magazine reported that Socotra, a distant off-shore Yemeni island, was being considered as a possible site for the rehabilitation program.[2]