All eyes on Montreal’s centre for prevention of extremism
Reported cases ‘do not make me feel we’re in danger,’ director says
From March 9 to Nov. 13, Montreal’s Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence received 368 calls on its hotline.
Ninety of them were about youths with “worrisome” or “alarming” behaviours; six involved individuals deemed potentially dangerous to themselves or the community.
Then the attacks in Paris happened — and the centre went into overdrive.
“Now everyone’s calling,” said the centre’s director Herman Okomba-Deparice, adding that two cases called in to the centre since the attacks in Paris warranted police attention. “I’m talking to everyone, from New Brunswick to Belgium. And I feel the moral duty to reassure Quebecers and tell them, let’s not go on a witch-hunt …
“We can’t guarantee nothing will happen here. There is no zero risk. But the cases I’ve been told about do not make me feel we’re in danger.”
The centre, as well as a new website for signalling potential cases — Info-Radical.org — were officially inaugurated Sunday, in the presence of Mayor Denis Coderre.
Coderre spearheaded the initiative in March after it was discovered that eight Quebec youths left for war zones in the Middle East, allegedly to join terrorist groups, and another 10 attempted to leave but were stopped by the RCMP at the airport.
Coderre named Okomba-Deparice as director, based on his 10 years of work with the police on racial profiling. On a budget of $2 million — half paid by the city, half by the provincial government — the centre has so far trained 100 police officers to detect and respond to signs of violent extremism, while 11 new staff members have met with school principals across the city.
Okomba-Deparice was vague about where the youths in question are now, however.
Two youths have since returned to Quebec, under the watchful eye of the RCMP.
But despite the centre’s other mandate to rehabilitate radical youths, it has not had any contact with them, Okomba-Deparice said.
In other cases, some of the youths’ parents have been unwilling to co-operate with the centre, he said. “They are in denial — no parent believes their child is actually a thief,” he says.
But the centre has worked with other families whose children have become radicalized, and based on their experience it has developed what it believes are powerful new tools for working with radicalized youths before they reach a point of no return.
From his corner office downtown, Okomba-Deparice presents an elaborate flow chart on the process of radicalization — from when youths start to question their place in society, to when they decide to commit or encourage acts of violence.
Pointing to a box in the middle of the chart, he says somewhere on that path is the search for answers with family, friends or mentors, at school, work, community centres or on the Internet.
“This is where you find Collège de Maisonneuve,” he says, referring to the CEGEP where 11 youths attended classes before they left or tried to leave for Syria.
The centre is set to make public a report on just what, if anything, happened at Collège de Maisonneuve to influence the youths, but Okomba-Deparice wouldn’t reveal what they learned.
Depending on what kind of answers the youths get at this middle stage, they will then move toward “pro-social” attitudes or become indoctrinated toward violence.
“Those youths did not wake up one day wanting to fight with the Islamic State,” Okomba-Deparice said. “It’s a process.”
In the wake of the Paris attacks, Okomba-Deparice also feels it necessary to debunk certain myths that have been circulating. In one interview, a Quebec City journalist suggested all Montreal mosques are led by radical imams preaching jihad. Okomba-Deparice said he was outraged at the suggestion. The Muslim community in Montreal is very mobilized to combat radicalization. And the centre was designed to combat all forms of radicalization — rightwing, left-wing and Islamist, for example.
“People are feeling vulnerable and looking for answers. But we have to avoid painting everyone with the same brush and falling back on discussion of us and them.”
For the benefit of social workers, police and parents, the centre has also developed a “barometer of behaviours” ranging from insignificant (growing a beard or wearing traditional clothing) to alarming: recruiting individuals to a violent cause or making physical or financial preparations to commit violent actions guided by ideological motives. Only in these extreme cases does the centre, which is independent of law enforcement, share the information with police.
In one case, for example, a parent said his son had converted to Islam, prays five times a day, and had requested a passport. Then he was caught visiting jihadist websites and learning how to make a bomb.
Okomba-Deparice is careful to point out there is no profile for a violent extremist.
In Montreal, as in Paris, they can be of any ethnic background or social class. Some 52 per cent of Frenchmen who joined terrorist groups were recent converts to Islam, Okomba-Deparice said.
But there are behaviours to watch out for, for instance if a top student suddenly becomes disinterested in school and frequently consults extremist websites.
If detected early enough, youths can be prevented from turning into violent extremists themselves.
This, ultimately, is where Okomba-Deparice sees a major difference in the approaches taken by European cities like Brussels and Paris, and Montreal.
“Since Friday and the attacks in Beirut and Paris, I’ve been saying security is not enough — you need security and prevention,” he says. “In France they arrest someone and say that is prevention. But by then it’s too late for prevention.”
He says he is not naive — once people are radicalized, you can’t expect to de-radicalize them overnight. But you can, over time, get them to disengage from violence. The centre is trying to set up a parole system for inmates who exhibit extremist tendencies, so they can be supervised by staff at the centre upon their release.
In the meantime, Okomba-Deparice says the Montreal centre will learn from the experience at Collège de Maisonneuve and from the tragedies in Paris and Beirut.
“There will always be frustrated youths,” he says. “But when someone becomes radicalized to violence in Montreal, we have to ask ourselves, what did we do or not do as a society for him to end up like this? Instead of being afraid, we have to ask ourselves these questions.”
To reach the centre: 514-687-7141 or 1-877-687-7141; info-radical.org
We have to avoid painting everyone with the same brush and falling back on discussion of us and them. HERMAN OKOMBA-DEPARICE