How a Firefighter-Turned-Filmmaker Gained Access to a Terrorist Rehab Center in ‘Jihad Rehab’ (Video)

thewrap.com:

Six months after 9/11, firefighter turned “Jihad Rehab” filmmaker Meg Smaker left her job as a Bay Area firefighter to travel to the Middle East to better understand the world she lived in.After making a pit stop in Afghanistan, Smaker moved to Yemen to study Arabic and Islam, and got a job there running a firefighting academy. “So I was a head fire instructor, teaching Yemeni men to fight fire in Yemen, which is where I was when I first heard about the rehab center, when I was living in Yemen and teaching a firefighting like course,” Smaker tells Sharon Waxman at The Wrap’s Sundance Studio. “I overheard some guys talk about this rehab center, and that was back in 2007.”The rehab center is the Mohammed bin Nayef Counseling and Care Center which is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Since 2007, over 3000 terrorist and extremists have been treated there with the intention of rehabilitating former jihadists to re-enter the mainstream of Saudi culture.The bulk of the documentary unfolds at the center, where the men have arrived through a Saudi-American arms deal in which the Saudi government agreed to take them.

Somehow, a belief emerged that they and other men like them could be reformed, and they were put through an extensive program that attempted to teach them how to handle finance, court women, engage with those who disagree with them without resorting to violence, and other life skills.The story of the rehab center fascinated Smaker. “It was just really interesting that, that this place even existed back then,” she said.Getting access to the facility took a year.