*Two-day conference on "Studying the Causes of Extremism" starts in Doha
Qatar plays a leading role in confronting the phenomenon of extremism and terrorism, Chairman of the National Counter-Terrorism Committee Maj Gen Eng Abdul Aziz Abdullah al-Ansari Saturday said.
"Besides, Qatar is moving forward to strengthen its bilateral, international and multilateral partnerships to address this phenomenon."
In a press statement on the sidelines of the conference "Studying the Causes of Extremism", which began in Doha Saturday, Maj Gen al-Ansari said Qatar has implemented many programmes in the field of combating terrorism and its financing, in addition to concluding cooperation agreements in this regard, whether international, bilateral or multilateral. He stressed Qatar is an example in this regard.
The international conference on studying the causes of extremism is organised by the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute at Qatar University (SESRI).
The two-day meet, the first-of-its-kind in the Middle East, gathers international experts, scientists and decision-makers from a number of countries around the world.
Maj Gen al-Ansari pointed out that Qatar signed an agreement with the United Nations to establish a centre in Doha to study behavioural patterns to violent extremism and evidence-based global policies and programmes inspired by behaviours to prevent and combat violent extremism leading to terrorism.
During the first session of the conference, Maj Gen al-Ansari presented the experience of Qatar in confronting terrorism and extremism and drying up its sources.
He noted the convening of this conference, which will result in the launch of an international index to measure violent extremism in the world to be a global reference for researchers and decision-makers . "We believe that executive decision-making must be science-based and supported by scientific research in diverse fields," he said.
Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) Michele Coninsx said research centers and related institutions should study the motives of extremism in some people, and study these cases in-depth, to reach results that will help to take preventive action in this regard. She added that there is certainly no single cause for extremism, therefore there are no single measures to counter it, as the motives are different, so the actions must be different.
Former Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector at the US Department of Homeland Security Douglas Andrew Smith stressed the importance of adopting scientific mechanisms to understand the current situation and derive results. He said that this field is open for academics to contribute to the diagnosis and analysis of the phenomenon of extremism.
Senior Director of the National Security Studies Research Group at Royal United Services Institute Andrew Glazzard called for the inclusion of countering extremism in the general policy of any country in the world, stressing the importance of the results of research and studies on extremism available to the decision-maker.
Two other sessions were held during the first day of the conference, one of which was entitled "assessing risk factors of extremism". The other discussed a topic titled "extremism and resilience."
