On July 4, 2017, Moscow hosted a round table Terrorism — a Common Problem with a Common Solution? organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FRG). In the course of the event the experts and government agency representatives from FRG, the EU, and Russia discussed the opportunities for cooperation in countering terrorism, in particular, the issues of correlation between terrorism and migration, Islamic extremism, radicalization processes in the Middle East, in Central Asia, foreign fighters phenomenon.
Another problem discussed was the ratio between security and freedom issues, full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms, that are often violated under the pretext of ensuring security.
On July 4, 2017, Moscow hosted a round table “Terrorism — a Common Problem with a Common Solution?” organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (Germany). In the course of the event the experts and government agency representatives from Germany, the EU, and Russia discussed the opportunities for cooperation in countering terrorism, in particular, the issues of correlation between terrorism and migration, Islamic extremism, radicalization processes in the Middle East, in Central Asia, foreign fighters phenomenon.
Another problem discussed was the ratio between security and freedom issues, full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms, that are often violated under the pretext of ensuring security.
Russian International Affairs Council was represented by Elena Alekseenkova, RIAC Program Manager on analytical work coordinating Central Asia and Eurasia work lines in RIAC. Her speech was focusing on a number of issues that EU and Russia are facing when analyzing the processes of radicalization and the spread of terrorism. In particular, she underscored the necessity for clear distinction between «reislamization» and «radicalization» in terms of processes going in Central Asia, the necessity for a deeper research of the reasons of politicization of Islam, and the danger of equating Islam and radicalism. She also raised a challenge of migrants as the most vulnerable and accessible target for terrorist recruitment, which is most likely induced by their social marginalization and integration issues in the society, rather than their religious self-identification. A number of opportunities for cooperation between Russia and the EU on countering radicalization and the spread of extremism were defined in the course of speech.
