A Discussion on Terrorism

A seminar on terrorism was arranged yesterday at Portcullis House by Khalid Mahmood MP, chair of the APPG on Tackling Terrorism, in light of the recent statement by Home Secretary Theresa May. Khalid Mahmood MP chaired the event and speakers included: Lord Carlile, Toaha Qureshi MBE, Lord Taylor and Haras Rafiq.

Khalid Mahmood MP set the scene by saying that the government figures of British people travelling to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS was skewed, stating that it is more closer to 1600-2000 people rather than 500 stated.

During the seminar, Mr Qureshi said that there has been no contact between the security agencies and the community organisations that are on the ground tackling these problems. The government has failed to engage with the communities who understand what the problem is. We need to look at the root causes of the issues rather than tackling the symptoms. There is a strong need for a similar approach from the previous government of preventing terrorism and radicalisation. In terms of people travelling to join IS, the problem is that they only know about those they are tracking and there will be more that they just do not know about.

Lord Carlile said that terrorism is shunned by Muslims and that 99.9% are against violence. It should be made absolutely clear that this is not a Muslim vs non Muslim issue. This is a clear matter of security and we must not inhibit this. There are concerns about misuse but we should not exaggerate the problems.

Lord Taylor asked for empirical data in terms of reasons as to why people are joining jihad to be formulated and reviewed. He went on to say that the recent bill, although he supported it, deals with issues around the root causes and not the root causes.

The strategy of Prevent was touched on by Mr Rafiq, saying the aim of it was to tackle those who were sympathetic to Al Qaeda, leading to intervention. Prevent was also meant to create resilience in the community. Prevent changed in 2010 and the government realised that they had to tackle the ideology and tackle far right extremism. There are still changes to be made.