Tag Archives: quilliam foundation

The Voice

LibLink: Maajid Nawaz … Parliament needs an Arabic-speaking liberal like me

By The Voice | Mon 9th February 2015 - 2:02 pm

maajid-navazThe Ham & High has been interviewing Maajid Nawaz, PPC for Hampstead and Kilburn, which is the country’s most marginal seat – and a three-way contest at that.

The article begins by describing the time when he was a recuiting officer for Hizb ut-Tahrir, then imprisoned in Egypt  and adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. His subsequent transformation into a campaigner for counter-extremism through his think tank, the Quilliam Foundation, has not been without controversy, but Liberal Democrats have taken him to their hearts.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 28 Comments
Jonathan Russell

The Independent View: A reformed Prevent could tackle extremism more effectively

By Jonathan Russell | Thu 4th December 2014 - 1:22 pm

The government’s counter-extremism strategy, Prevent, is often criticised. Some say it acts like a thought-police, criminalises Islam and over-securitises places like schools. Others claim there is not enough buy in from Muslim communities, that it funds non-violent Islamists to tackle jihadists, or that it is not the government’s job to challenge ideology. Neither criticism is absolutely fair, but as criticised as Prevent is, it undoubtedly serves an important function and is here to stay.

While all terrorists are extremists, the vast majority of extremists do not use terrorism as a viable strategy, and a liberal and democratic nation cannot and should not deal with all extremists in the same way as it deals with terrorists. But catching terrorists who “love death as you love life” is a difficult proposition for the police or the security services when they’re keen to go down fighting and cause as much destruction as possible while they do it. Only dealing with extremism once it becomes violent and illegal is a high stakes game where the penalty for losing is the death of large numbers of innocent civilians. Tackling extremism of all kinds before it becomes violent can reduce the civilian casualties, reduce the number of violent extremists that have to be dealt with, and has the secondary benefit of challenging non-violent behaviour that nonetheless has a negative impact on British society.

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
Shaughan Dolan

The Independent View: An Arab EU could be the answer the Middle East needs

By Shaughan Dolan | Fri 22nd August 2014 - 9:25 am

The Islamic State is a symptom of a much wider and more dangerous split in the Islamic world between Sunni, Shia and Kurdish communities across the Middle East. Whatever action Western governments undertake to stop the Islamo-fascists ISIS, more must be done to mend an age-old split between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged , and | 21 Comments
The Voice

The Times interviews Maajid Nawaz: “I am planning to become a quite respectable Liberal Democrat MP”

By The Voice | Sat 28th June 2014 - 6:15 pm

maajid-navazToday’s Times carries an in-depth interview with Maajid Nawaz, Lib Dem candidate for the three-way marginal London seat of Hampstead & Kilburn, and co-founder and chairman of the Quilliam Foundation, the counter-extremism think tank. (Readers may have caught Maajid’s excellent performance on BBC1’s Question Time on Thursday night.)

You can read it in full here (£), but here are a couple of excerpts for those who can’t read beyond the paywall:

Maajid Nawaz can understand why two aspirational Muslim brothers from Cardiff have ended up going on jihad in Syria. Born

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 19 Comments
Jonathan Russell

The Independent View: Positively fighting back online

By Jonathan Russell | Mon 26th May 2014 - 11:07 am

Circuit Bending Orchestra: Lara Grant at Diana Eng's Fairytale FWith the seemingly endless news of global and domestic extremism –  whether about the 250 girls kidnapped in Nigeria, the 500 Britons reportedly waging jihad in Syria, or the worrying allegations made against several Birmingham schools – it is rare that a report devoted to countering extremism should fill us with positivity. However, research released last week by Quilliam about the state of online extremism should encourage us all, not …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged , , and | 3 Comments
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