Shura Council Official Stresses Qatar's Calls For Efforts To Address Roots Of Terrorism

Algiers: Secretary General of the Shura Council and Chairman of the Association of Secretaries General of Arab Parliaments H E Dr. Ahmed bin Nasser Al Fadala stressed on Sunday the State of Qatar's calls for a definition and legal characterization of terrorism so that it is not exploited to stigmatize a specific religion or ethnic group as terrorist, as well as its calls for serious efforts to address the roots of terrorism.

This came in his speech before the second meeting of the series of meetings 'The Call of the Sahel', currently held in Algeria under the theme 'Engaging societies in preventing and confronting violent extremism'. The Call for the Sahel was decided by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) during the 1st Global Parliamentary Summit on Count-Terrorism in September 2021 in Vienna.

He participated, at the invitation of the IPU, in the fourth session of the meeting entitled 'The role of religious leaders and legislators in the field of the rule of law and citizenship in the Sahel'.

In his speech, the Secretary-General of the Shura Council said that this region suffers from a high population density and a steady increase in births, amid continuous waves of desertification and environmental fluctuations that harm agricultural and pastoral production, in a region whose economy is based on agricultural and animal production. These conditions are accompanied by unfavourable economic conditions for stability and the availability of work, triggering young people to search for means of living that governments are often unable to provide, so they become vulnerable to risking illegal and unsafe migration, and falling into the traps and clutches of extremist groups that recruit young people, and make them threats to security and stability in the region or work as mercenaries that threaten the stability of states surrounding.

He highlighted that the State of Qatar launched the Silatech Foundation, which is concerned with providing thousands of jobs for Arab youth and expanding economic opportunities for them; launched initiatives to educate millions of girls and children in conflict areas; provided financial and logistical assistance to return stranded African illegal immigrants to their homelands, and hosted the Doha Forum to return foreign terrorist fighters to their home countries.

In the same context, Dr. Al Fadala indicated that the State of Qatar participated in the international efforts to combat terrorism, made significant contributions to the UN bodies concerned with terrorism, and signed an agreement with the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) under which it established the International Hub on Behavioral Insights to CounterTerrorism as a programme affiliated with the UNOCT office in Doha. The Shura Council signed an agreement with the UNOCT in February 2020 under which the Shura Council, on behalf of the State of Qatar, will host the UNOCT Program Office on Parliamentary Engagement in Preventing and Countering Terrorism, he said.

Thanks to the wisdom of its leadership and the confidence of the international community in it, Qatar was able to lead the reconciliations and host the dialogues of the conflicting parties in a number of countries, including Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Chad, and Afghanistan, he said.

MENAFN28022023000063011010ID1105668041