M.B. is one of thousands of young Tunisian men who have travelled to Syria in 2013 to fight in Daesh’s army. But less than half a year later, the 26-year-old M.B. became disillusioned by war, and random acts of violence, he said, so he escaped from Syria and traveled back home to Tunisia.

Now he is under house arrest and security agents clock his every move. He is not allowed to travel or work without permission. M.B. insists that he no longer belongs to any jihadi groups, but realizes that his brief stint with Daesh will be impossible to shed from his record.

M.B. is one of thousands of young Tunisian men who have travelled to Syria in 2013 to fight in Daesh’s army. But less than half a year later, the 26-year-old M.B. became disillusioned by war, and random acts of violence, he said, so he escaped from Syria and traveled back home to Tunisia.

Now he is under house arrest and security agents clock his every move. He is not allowed to travel or work without permission. M.B. insists that he no longer belongs to any jihadi groups, but realizes that his brief stint with Daesh will be impossible to shed from his record.

“It is difficult to persuade security services to drop the charge of travelling to fight in Syria or even to convince people that I did not want to get involved in fighting there,” he says.

M. B. says he was lured to travel to Syria without elaborating further on the transportation network. “I was involved in a battle that almost took my life had I not miraculously escaped across the Turkish border,” he says.

M. B. managed to escape after he persuaded the supervisors of his camp that he needed to go to the Turkish border to send money to his family. “Fortunately, I escaped from these fighters and went back to Tunisia after I hid my passport,” he says.

How to deal with returning Jihadis

The Tunisian Ministry of Interior (MoI) decided to place some returnees from tension areas under house arrest and administrative control, an intensive regulatory procedure against terrorism suspects previously enforced by the former regime.

The Tunisian government resorted to these measures again after a presidential security bus was bombed in Tunis on November 23, claiming the lives of 12 presidential guards. The attack followed two other deadly attacks on tourists in the capital at Bardo museum and then on a beach resort in Sousse.

Spokesman for the MoI Walid Wakini said that 500 people returned from Syria, 100 of whom were placed under house arrest, while the others were arrested pending trial or placed under administrative control.

Some consider these measures to be a step in the right direction, while others believe that reducing public freedom does not limit the risk of terrorism suspects.

Lawyer Samir Ben Omar says excluding Jihadis returning from Syria and excluding them from society might lead to adverse results affecting the country. He claims that he has discovered through examining hundreds of the judicial files of returnees that their fear of security crackdowns and judicial punishments makes them refrain from returning even if they have a desire to “repent.”

Omar argues that tightening the grip on returnees and preventing them from working or even moving “will only force them to turn to terrorist groups again, especially since most of them suffered from difficult social and economic situations.”

Re-integration possible?

Lawyer Akram Barouni says the international criminal policy only adopts a punishment approach. He also calls for practical, cultural, religious and social programs and mechanisms to rehabilitate and integrate these people in society while providing specialists and religious scholars to raise their awareness in prison.

Whereas, head of the Relief Association for Tunisians Abroad Badis Kobakji says returnees are a huge threat because they know how to deal with weapons, pointing out that some democratic countries like France have taken severe measures to address the issue.

“The sovereignty of the country does not conflict with human rights in case of wars,” says Kobakji. “The country is entitled to protect its people and adopt a legal system compatible with its security, stability and protection.”

According to security sources, nearly 19,000 people are labeled by the MoI as dangerous terrorists, with a large number of them accused of fighting in Syria.