In 2002, Yemen, a country known to have been a breeding ground for al-Qaeda members, initiated a project to use dialogue as a means to alter the ways of suspected militant Islamists held in the state’s prisons. The project received international attention for its bold attempt to use their common reference to Islamic law as a peaceful means for the state to impact the militants. However, the actual implementation of the strategy was steeped in arbitrary arrests, indefinite detentions, torture and other violations of human rights. Furthermore, it was unclear what the charges against the detainees were and what impact the dialogue sessions had. The project was discontinued in 2005.
This paper examines the Yemeni experience of dialogues with Islamists it concludes that, though such a strategy might be a useful means for counter-terrorism, an environment for genuine dialogues cannot be established without taking into account wider issues of the state’s legitimacy vis-à-vis its citizens.
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