Sharing of Work Done by Religious Rehabilitation Group

Prof Fatimah Lateef asked the Minister for Communications and Information and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs whether visitations to, and sharing of the work done by the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG) can be embedded into the curriculum of every cohort of asatizah as well as Secondary and post-Secondary madrasah students.

The Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs (Assoc Prof Dr Yaacob Ibrahim): Madam, religious clerics or Asatizah registered under the Asatizah Recognition Scheme (ARS) are required to undergo the Continuing Professional Education (CPE) programme. Since 2013, the CPE includes a key module on counter-extremism by the Religious Rehabilitation Group, or RRG. Through this module, the RRG shares with Asatizah its experience in rehabilitating and reintegrating former Jemaah Islamiyah members into society. MUIS and the RRG will continue to update this module to ensure its relevance, and to aim for every Asatizah to attend it. Currently, 80% of our Asatizah are part of the ARS, and we will encourage the remaining 20% to come onboard.

Many Asatizah have visited the RRG Resource and Counselling Centre (RCC) at Khadijah Mosque since its launch in 2014, to learn first-hand RRG's efforts in tackling extremist ideologies especially those on social media platforms.

The RRG also engages our secondary and post-secondary madrasah students on the threats of radicalisation and extremism through platforms such as learning journeys to the RCC and the Madrasah Pre-U Seminar. The Madrasah Pre-U Seminar is attended by all secondary and pre-U Madrasah students, and is held every two to three years. MUIS will continue to strengthen the madrasah curriculum with relevant content developed by the RRG.

* *Assoc Prof Fatimah Lateef (Marine Parade): I thank the Minister for the response. Can I also ask whether we encourage or make it part of the programme for our Mosque Committees, including the Youth Committees in our mosques, to actually attend and get to know about the work of the RRG. For the Asatizah that was mentioned earlier, are those who are qualified or are trained overseas required to understand what RRG does?

Assoc Prof Dr Yaacob Ibrahim: Mdm Speaker, if they are registered under the ARS, as mentioned in my reply, whether they are overseas graduates or not, they will have to go through the CPE and that would include the component on the work of the RRG. To her first question on whether or not we encourage mosques and youth groups to do so, we do that all the time. Mosques are free to arrange their own programmes. In fact, since the RRC was opened in 2014, there have been many, many visitors, not just from the religious fraternity but also from other groups, because we want to encourage a greater understand across the whole cross-section of Singapore society.