In ther special reports from the Danish city of Aarhus on the country’s controversial policy of de-radicalisation, CNN’s Atika Shubert speaks to local Mosque chairman Oussama el-Saadi about the role of Danish Muslims in discouraging young people from joining Jihad in Syria and Iraq.

“The only and the most important thing that we want to see is that they don’t consider us as criminals,” said el-Saadi, who has been working with police on the best way to approach young Muslims. “They don’t consider us as terrorists, and they recognize us as minority living in Denmark and will continue living in Denmark and that we are a part of this society.”

El-Saadi said young people from his mosque started traveling to Syria because they wanted to make a difference. And El-Saadi refused to condemn the brutality of the radical Islamist groups — like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra — that are running rampant in the war-torn country.

“We are here in Denmark, so far away from the area around there,” he told CNN. “We are not condemning or supporting any group down there because we don’t have the information.”

El-Saadi said that jihadis returning to Denmark were probably turned off by the infighting between the various Muslim groups battling for control of Syria, or that they simply wanted to return to a more normal life of school and work.

Read the full report on CNN here.