 Our organization, IRI, is committed to inclusively strengthening democratic institutions to ensure meaningful and sustainable safeguards against violence and extremism. By equipping NGO actors to peacefully and effectively advocate for change in their communities and reinforcing the importance of inclusive policy development among government officials, you know, it's important to lead cutting-edge programming to promote peaceful democratic change in some of the most conflict-prone areas of the world, such as East Africa, South Asia, and North Africa. The religious community is a critical component of this work in addressing violent conflict and preventing radicalization across the world. Approaches to countering violent extremism, conflict mitigation, and stabilization work more broadly must include the lens of improved local governance and providing political solutions to protracted conflicts and shocks to the stabilizing process. This necessitates the inclusion of formal and informal leaders as well as marginalized populations, both of which include religious leaders. Religion is often targeted or exploited by violent groups. In order to protect the free, safe expression of religion around the world, government officials must develop and promote inclusive policies, and community leaders must hold their officials accountable to ensure political systems remain unbiased and uncorrupt. Societies must institutionalize open, transparent principles in order for citizens around the world to more freely and safely practice their religions. As democracy flourishes, so too does the free, peaceful expression of religion. We will be investigating these issues today in two panels. The first will explore religion and countering violent extremism, and the second on interface peace-building role in advancing religious freedom. Between the two panels, we will have a break for a brief reception in the Leland Atrium just outside this room. For those of you who need to pray during this break, space will be provided and available. For our first panel, I am very pleased to introduce our first speaker, former Congressman Frank Wolf. In over his 30 years in Congress, Representative Wolf was a strong advocate for human rights generally and religious freedom specifically. It was his tireless efforts that contributed to the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998, and it's a testament to his long commitment that the 2016 Act that strengthened IRFA bears his name. We are so pleased that he can join us today to kick off the discussion. Congressman Wolf, I'd like to invite you to give your remarks, and thank you for your service. Well, thank you very much. And I would say I was here at the dedication of the U.S. Institute for Peace-building, and having an event like this, I think, is what Senator Ted Stevens would want, and also I would say what Mark Hatfield would want. And so I commend the U.S. Institute for Peace. I think this is kind of an opportunity for you as you begin to develop programs with regard to this. President Reagan said that the words in the Constitution and the words in the Declaration of Independence were a covenant, a covenant not only with the people in Philadelphia in 1776, my hometown, or a covenant with the people in Philadelphia in 1787, but a covenant with the entire world, a covenant with the Nigerian up in Jost, who's been threatened by Boko Ram and the Fulani militants, a covenant with the people of Pakistan, Asia BB, who was in prison, a covenant with the Rohingya in Burma, who I believe are now facing a genocide, a covenant with the Catholic nun in Iraq, a sister Diana who went through terrible times, a covenant with the Yazidi up on Mount Sinjar, who can't understand now why the world isn't focusing. So I think what you're doing here is kind of fitting in and to call you through for that covenant. During the days as I came in, I saw George Shultz's name there. You want to get to the point where Doreen George Shultz and Jim Baker, that whenever they would go to any embassy, whether it be in Moscow or Bucharest or wherever, they would meet with a dissonance. They would meet with those who are being persecuted, whether human rights, religious rights, and they would identify and advocate for. So I think there's a unique opportunity, and I heard this continues as you move on. When you look at the Pew survey, and it's so painful, every year it goes up and up and up. Now it's over 80%. You don't want to exaggerate, but Pew survey over 80% with regard to people living in a religiously repressive environment. Over 5.5 billion, billion people. You have to say at times, and I say it very delicately, there has been a somewhat inherent bias by the State Department. Really, I've seen since 1993, 94 beyond. The bill that I introduced to create the law was opposed by the State Department. John Shattuck came up and testified against the bill. And you've almost had a bias, if you will, some legitimate in so far as the establishment clause. I think we all are concerned, particularly in our country of the establishment clause, but not to be involved in the issue of working with faith groups and religious groups. You have to understand that is part of the problem with regard to the Rohingya. That's why the Chinese government are doing what they're doing to the Uighurs. One of the receptions the other night, two young Uighur men came up to me. They said, one said, I have 87 relatives that are in a detention camp in China. Another one said, I have two relatives who have been killed by the Chinese government for basically being Uighurs. Counter and violence extremism, I mean, for these young people, that is the way. And so the very fact that this group and others in our State Department is engaged is to be very, very helpful. The University Declaration of Human Rights makes it clear that this is an important issue. I won't read it, but you also know it. There are opportunities to really make a difference. People of faith do what they do because of their faith. Mother Teresa went into India in Calcutta and did what she did because of her faith. Chuck Colson in my country in America led the effort. All this effort we now hear about prison reform really came out of what Chuck Colson's work did. And the Colson Commission with regard to reform, Chuck did it because of his faith. And Dr. Brantley, who was with Samaritan's Purse, got Ebola himself fighting Ebola in Africa. So people do things of all different religious denominations because of their faith. In closing, I think you had a couple opportunities moving forward. One, I believe you have a great team in the Trump-Pence administration. I think with Secretary Pompeo, I served with him in the House as good as you're going to get on this issue. Ambassador Brownback, he's as good as you're ever going to get. He's like an ester for such a time like this. I think David Saperstein did a great job. And I think Ambassador Brownback will do a good job. I traveled with Ambassador Brownback. We were the first two guys to go to Darfur when the genocide was taking place. I watched him in action. We were in a little village. John Jouid was surrounding it. And two young Muslim girls had been assaulted. And I watched Ambassador Brownback in action. You could not have a better person working on this issue. And one of the first trips he took was to Burma with regard to the Rohingya. Also, with regard to Administrator Green, Mark Green is as good as you're going to get to be running AID, to be dealing with programs that help. So I think the team that is in place is an outstanding team. And I have always believed that personnel is policy. And if you put the right personnel in, they will develop the right policy. Whereas if a great policy and poor personnel, it doesn't happen. The last issue is this is unique in another respect. I'm a good friend of my best friend in Congress is Congressman Tony Hall, a liberal Democrat supported President Obama. We came together and worked together and still work together on all these issues. Nancy Pelosi is a good friend of mine. We had an event two weeks ago where we had a prisoner's a conscious event where we brought different congressional offices and groups to adopt prisoners of conscience in China, whether it be the Uyghurs, whether it be the Buddhist, Tibetan, the Pancinlamas have been taken away at age six and never been seen since. This was saying let's adopt, let's do things. We had a leader Pelosi come who was eloquent and then we had Senator Cruz come. So here we had the former Democratic Speaker of the House come and it would not be a Tombolantos commission had it not been for a Miss Pelosi. And then we had Ted Cruz who was running for president with regard to the Republican Party. You have Jim McGovern, who is as good as you're ever going to get from Massachusetts with Randy Holkgrin. The point I'm trying to say is there is, particularly for those of you from our country, we know we're going through a tough time, polarization. On this issue, there is not the polarization. It used to be in the old days, it would be from Blantos to Chris Smith to Henry Hyde. There is a bipartisan majority and there's a consensus to deal with this issue. And so I think this is a unique opportunity. One, we have administration cares. We have a team in there that I think is as good as you're ever going to get. I say that as a conservative Republican, but I think they're good. But we also have a bipartisan issue. We have Leader Pelosi and we have a Senator Cruz. We have a Chris Smith and we have a Jim McGovern. This is the opportunity to really make a difference for people of faith, to advocate for the Rohingya and Burma. I mean, personally, I believe sanctions ought to be put on the Burmese. When I read the story and then talk to Reba Kedir, who some of you may know, Reba came by to see me about two months ago. Thirty of her grandchildren have been taken away to a detention camp. I mean, it's almost like Stalinists. It's like it's like Mao. And so we can come together and we can advocate. And I think what this moment is, and I thank Nancy and the US Institute for Peace and Happiness, this is an important moment where we can make a tremendous difference to help people of faith of all faiths around the world. Thank you very much. I could ask our first panel to please join me on the stage. And thank you, Congressman Hall, that was. Sorry, thank you, Congressman Wolf, you put Tony Hall in my brain. Thank you very much for the inspirational opening and putting us exactly in the right frame of mind. Thank you for joining us. And thank you, Tony and Mike, for the partnership with IRI and Search for Common Ground. There you are. It's really wonderful to be able to do this event together. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president here at US Institute of Peace, and I'm delighted to welcome everybody. Let me repeat what Tony said, that please join us on the Twitter conversation at hashtag IRF ministerial and a special welcome to all of you who have been at the ministerial this week. It truly has been an important gathering that's brought people together from across the world. For those of you who have not been at USIP before, we were founded in 1984 by Congress through the conviction of congressional members like Congressman Wolf. And we were founded as a nonpartisan independent national institution dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, that it is very practical, and it requires the kind of focused effort that we do by working with partners in conflict zones around the world, helping them have access to the tools, the information, and the approaches that enable them to manage conflict so it doesn't become violent and to resolve it when it does. And we know from long conviction and experience that freedom of religion is an absolute vital component for a lasting, sustained peace. And in fact, in our, some 20 years ago, we started what is now one of our longest programs, which is peace and religion, and a former colleague, David Little, was involved with the drafting and the advising of the International Religious Freedom Act. So we're delighted to be able to be here today. This is an issue that's near and dear to our heart. We also know by conviction and experience that it is critical to understand the relationship between religious freedom and efforts to counter violent extremism. Violent extremism has been one of the critical disruptors of peace around the world, a threat to people of many countries, including our own. And what we found, however, is that it is a complicated relationship that we need to understand, so that in an effort to counter violent extremism, there isn't also an unintended suppression of religious freedom. And even in some cases, the potential to create additional resentment against the state and drive people inadvertently to more radical theologies. So these relationships need further investigation. They happen differently in different places. I was very encouraged to see in the ministerial to advance religious freedom, Potomac Plan of Action that it addressed this issue head on by encouraging nations to increase the international understanding of how suppression of religious freedom can contribute to violent extremism, sectarianism, conflict, insecurity, and stability. So it's clearly an issue that is on the table for conversation. And it is what we will explore in depth today. And we have a really incredible, wonderful panel, and I'm very honored to be on stage. We have Sheikh Abdullah Bin Baya, who is really a foremost scholar on Islamic thought. We have had him here with us to discuss this topic previously. Sheikh Bin Baya, welcome back to US Institute of Peace. We're also joined by Reverend Professor Fadi Dao, whose chair and CEO of the Adyan Foundation in Beirut. He's an expert on inter-religious dialogue and the geopolitics of religion. We have Humara Khan, who is the founder and director of Muflahun, which is a leading organization on preventing violent extremism. And welcome to Oliver Cox, a longtime friend and colleague. He's the deputy director of countering violent extremism at the US Department of State. So thank you, each of you, for joining us today for this very timely conversation. We will talk, I'm going to ask a few questions, and then we will take questions that we're collecting on no cards. So let me start with Sheikh Bin Baya and Reverend Dao as religious actors, Humara as your civil society expert hat, and Oliver with your government hat. Where do you see, just as a general opening question, where do you see the greatest opportunities and challenges that you encounter when it comes to engaging religious actors, religious institutions on the issues of countering violent extremism? And Sheikh Bin Baya, are we able, can we start with you? In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. Thank you, Ma'ahad. Thank you, Ma'ahad, for this opportunity that came to us once again, and this time again, that I invite you, Ma'ahad, to talk about peace and freedom. The subject, as pointed out and as Senator talked about before, is a complicated subject, and not easy, the subject of religious freedom, and freedom in general, and a complicated subject. So, the Sheikh said, first of all, just, Bismillah in the name of God, and then extend my gratitude to the Institute for Peace here. This is the second time that I've come here to speak in this forum. He said that the, just as Congressman Wolf said earlier, the problem of freedom is a very complex one, it's not easily, there are a lot of dimensions to it, so it's not something that can be just easily understood. So, is the question then, what is the role of religion in terms of dealing with these challenges, like violent extremism and freedom of religion? Is that the question you're asking me? Or is it the role of religious freedom in societies? We're engaged in countering violent extremism. There's always a problem with translations, because you never know if they're getting it right. There's a lot of challenges that we're facing. So, you're dealing with the challenge of spreading religious peace, but you're also dealing with the challenge of maintaining the type of social stability in the midst of that. So, these are two challenges. Many of the wars were created because of a group of people from religious freedom, and I don't agree with religious freedom for the least, which is a very complex one. So, it's a very complex one. It's a very complex one. It's a very complex one. It's a very complex one. It's a very complex one. So, a lot of the wars that we've had, actually, were the result of people demanding religious freedom, and also the result of minorities that have been oppressed and not allowed to practice their religious freedom. Like was mentioned earlier, the problem with the Rohingyas or the problem of the Uyghurs in China. So, perhaps you've heard of this initiative that was started by several scholars that were involved in action. So, perhaps you've heard of this initiative that was started by several scholars that were involved in actually developing a policy. This was the Marrakesh Declaration, which was designed to promote religious pluralism in the region where there was a lot of minorities that were being persecuted. So, this group gathered a significant number of scholars from within the Muslim religion but also a very significant number of people from outside of the religion, Yazidis and others that were representative of the people that were being persecuted and are Christians. So, perhaps you've heard of this initiative that was started by several scholars that had been persecuted and are being persecuted and are being prosecuted and are being persecuted and are being prosecuted representative of the people that were being persecuted as well as the others, and they met, and we agreed upon this promotion of religious freedom in the majority Muslim countries, especially those areas that were the religious freedom was being infringed upon. So we attempted to address this issue from a theological perspective? So what we were attempting to do was literally sever this rope that these extremists were holding on to, this idea that the Islamic religion is antagonistic to religious pluralism and to minorities? So we revived what was actually from the very foundation of Islam, which was the Covenant of Medina. We revived this idea in which the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, he established a covenant of equal citizenship amongst the different actors in that early period, so there were different communities, and he gave each one of them the rights and responsibilities that were equal, whether they were Muslim or from the other communities, the Jewish community and others. So one of the things that we also were addressing was citizenship and how do we establish the grounds for citizenship? So I hope that it'll be distributed amongst you copies of it so you can understand what we were talking about. We had Susan Hayward was with us from the Institute of Peace in Marrakesh when we actually made the declaration. Pastor Bob Roberts also who's here with us from the evangelical community was with us? So this challenge that we face from within the religion itself of this extremism, what we were attempting to do was sever that influence that they have on people. So looking at what is the normative understanding of the religion? Is the religion open or is it closed? These have to be established. So the second major challenge is the religious leadership itself. How does the religious leadership deliver a sound, intelligent, guided and wise message to the general populace? Especially in light of this narrative that the extremists are presenting that is unfortunately has a type of appeal to young people in these conditions so how do we address that and present a narrative that is actually more aligned with the sound understanding of the religion? So I feel in relation to minorities in the Muslim majority countries we actually gained quite a bit of ground that we... So one of the problems though is how do we disseminate this understanding and how do we inculcate a higher understanding amongst the masses of people? And so also another thing is how do we unite with the other religions in addressing this issue as a united front because each of us have within our constituencies extreme elements. So how do we come together in solidarity? And so one of the ways that we tried to address that was what we call the Alliance of Virtue where we brought together different people especially from the Abrahamic tent to come together in solidarity with these agreed upon values and virtues that we share as a community. So we're definitely in support of religious freedom and freedom in general but we also have to understand our role right now is just putting out fires. We're dealing with fires of war in the region. We want a balanced freedom, we want a freedom that has its rights but also has its recognized responsibilities especially in regards to what we would call the social order. I think by now you want me to just shut up. Thank you. Thank you, Shikman Baya, and thank you for your work on the Marrakesh Declaration and the Alliance of Virtues. These are both, and I commend people to look into those. I want to go to Reverend Dow. As in your experience as a Christian minister in the Middle East, what would your advice be to policymakers and practitioners of how should they support religious actors, especially from different faiths, to work on this issue of countering violent extremism? What's your experience, and what would your good counsel be? Thank you. Let me first of all say how much I'm glad to be here and at the Institute of Peace. This is my first visit to the Institute. I'm really happy for this. And also, I'm honored to be a part of this panel and Nier Sheikh Abdullah bin Baya, who I would like to recognize that the work he's doing is really moving the situation for more sustainable, I would say, peace. Maybe the fruits are not directly visible today, but I'm sure that what he is doing and the whole team working with him is building the future and peace for the future. So thank you. Answering your question, I mean, it's a very, very complex question. I would like very briefly to say that the relation between policymakers and religious leaders is always complex. And viewed from the Eastern perspective, sometimes it can be even not only complex but problematic because sometimes it can reflect kind of manipulation or kind of looking from a policymakers perspective for kind of legitimacy that will make religion less credible in its message on the social level. To take the other side of the story and the more positive, I would say, side of the story, we are witnessing nowadays and especially in the Middle East and in the Christian-Muslim relations also a huge step forward when it comes to coexistence and living together and building peace and societies and facing extremism also. I would call this an ADIAN foundation. I mean, the organization that I chair, we created this concept of inclusive citizenship which reflects, in fact, what Marak's declaration is saying about the fact that it's not, when I say inclusive citizenship, it's not just saying that we are all equal citizens together, but we are all part of one community including the whole diversity coming from different cultural religious backgrounds composing this unique community. So, what I want to point here is that recently, for example, after Marak's declaration in 2016, we had in 2017 a conference organized by Al-Azhar where the concept also was supported calling for the adoption, the full adoption of citizenship and inclusive citizenship in the society's mostly majority society or not necessarily mostly majority societies, I mean, in general. I would say that this concept applies also to any society today. So, the relation between policymakers and religious leaders on this level is how they can collaborate by ensuring that inclusive citizenship has, at the same time, its religious legitimacy, let's say, and so developing a religious discourse that gives its legitimacy, but at the same time, the legal and political framework to be really implemented within societies. This, I would say, the key point today in the collaboration, possible collaboration between policymakers and religious leaders. Of course, there are so many other points, but I want to be brief for this first answer. Great, thank you. And so, I want to go to a similar question to Humara. Where in this relationship between countering violent relationship and religion, do you see the most effective ways of addressing the challenges? Okay, I'll start out by saying thank you actually to US Institute of Peace. I host the International Republican Institute as well as Search for Common Ground for having us. It's really an honor to be on this panel with my fellow panelists and thank you Nancy as well. So, in terms of how do we work around this challenge space, right? And really, part of it is how do we even bring some of these stakeholders to the table to recognize that they're all stakeholders. In the space I work in, both as a CSO, but then also working or engaging with policy level from the UN Security Council, different governments, law enforcement, et cetera. One of the things we find is that there is a general lack of understanding or misconception about the role of religion in actually causing violent extremism. So the starting point for many is that religion is the first factor and it's the cause of violent extremism in the first place. And yet, if you look at the research which is coming from the ground, right, in terms of what is actually happening with people, and this is across the spectrum of extremisms. So if you look at fascism, you look at the al-Qaeda, ISIS, you look at the neo-Nazi movements across the board, what we are seeing is that the factors which are creating vulnerability, the sense of who am I, identity, belonging, purpose, sense of helplessness and lack of control, right, feelings of social discrimination, marginalization, relative deprivation, all of those aspects, those are the grievances that are starting the quest for something. And then when someone is looking, right, they're struggling with life and then they start looking, the question is what will pull them in? In some cases we see gangs, in some cases it's drugs, you name it, social evils. But now we have violent extremist groups as part of our menu options, which means that when you're trying to do prevention, right, religion ends up being a protective factor because it can actually increase the barriers to entry against violence, right? And so we have to understand the role of it first and that's usually not the starting point, right? And when the first response of many governments has actually been, well, either we should have no religion, religion should be excluded from the space entirely, or if they're including religion, the assumption is there is only one form of religion and they should be the one controlling it. So top-down control from governments on what is an acceptable form of religion actually is restricting the religious freedom space. And so even having everyone come to the table and have a common understanding of the dynamics which are actually playing out on the ground, working with the communities and understanding what is actually happening on the ground, that's the first step. And that's, once we can overcome that, it really helps because then you can move past a lot of the suspicions and the distrust in terms of should you want to be at the table and actually making the table bigger. And once, and reality is if you're trying to prevent or counter violent extremism, we need alliances. These are going to be partnerships which are going to include governments, they're going to include the full spectrum of civil society, private sector, and religion, right? Necessarily, religion, the whole space of religion, right? Religion is the moral compass for society, right? Those values are essential and if we are going to try and create these resilient communities and societies, we need that space and we need to have that space where people can belong to any faith or no faith and be an equal citizen, right? I am not less of a citizen because of my faith, right? And so I think part of it is reframing some of how we understand this space. So we're not pitting religion and religious freedom against security. So Oliver, I saw you nodding your head, but I want to ask you, you know, who are talking about the assumption that religion is part of the problem without going deeper into the particular drivers? There's a lot of emphasis on engaging religious actors to create counter narratives to be, to provide a different vision for what the opportunities are. Where have you seen that work? Well, what do you see as the pitfalls? I mean, I know that has been an approach, certainly that many governments have used. What's been your experience with that? Well, thanks Nancy and thanks to the Institute for organizing this session and including me. I think that the counter narratives work for countering violent extremism in general is very important. It's one of a number of lines of effort that we have in countering violent extremism or countering terrorist radicalization and recruitment. Equally important is working in and with communities face to face because there is a lot of research to show that radicalization and recruitment still require that personal and still often face to face element in relationship to bring somebody who may be vulnerable to become a sympathizer or a supporter. So that obviously can happen online but in many places it still happens face to face as well. So the different areas of countering violent extremism are linked and should be increasingly linked but I would like to disagree a little bit with Amaro in one point. I think there is a growing understanding and appreciation of the range of factors that can drive radicalization and recruitment. I think we all agree that ideas matter, ideology matters in this case but there are other social, psychological, political, economic and other factors that are work at work and as we know, we have to look at the local context to see which drivers may be the most salient. It makes our collective work even more difficult when analysts and researchers who know the subject well tell us that even in the same community what may drive one individual to become radicalized or recruited may differ somewhat from another individual. So we have to look at not just the community level but the individual levels as well. I'd like to just touch on a couple of other what I think are opportunities and challenges here from what we've seen around the world. As Amaro mentioned, obviously religious leaders are one partner, CVE to be effective has to be a whole of community, whole of society, whole of government approach and religious leaders like other actors bring something to the table. And so increasingly the future of what is effective is as I think you put it Amaro, who's in the alliance, who's sitting around the table, what are they bringing to the table, how are they pooling their efforts and doing this as a multi-sectoral approach. The problem is multi-dimensional, therefore the response has to be multi-dimensional as well. So I think that's actually an opportunity as well as a challenge. Obviously doing this kind of work there are sensitivities regarding the security of those that are engaged in doing it at the local level. It can be their physical security, their political security, reputational risks, but the people doing this work on the ground often recognize that and we of course have to be sensitive to that. I think one of the big challenges here is the appeal to youth and the Sheikh mentioned the appeal to youth and this is where the research is so important because as adults over, pick your age 35 or 40, we are increasingly removed from what appeals to a 15 year old or an 18 year old and this tends to be the age span where vulnerability grows and where we still have an opportunity to intervene. So understanding not only what drives radicalization but also what appeals to youth I think is a challenge not just for religious leaders but for all of us. Great, thank you Oliver. And Humair, I wanna go back to you because both you and Oliver alluded to this core tension between the security concerns and the freedom to practice your religion. So how does civil society engage in addressing the challenges of violent extremism and the security threat that it represents while also keeping an eye on preserving the core freedom to practice one's religion? How do you think about that? How have you seen that balance work or how have you navigated that challenge? It's very hard to find the balance and in most contexts where it's playing out it's not a happy balance at all and it's certainly dynamic. And part of this is perhaps the way the space of counter violent extremism even evolved and because it started off as an offshoot of counter terrorism the responses or the tactics and tools which were used tended to be very military and law enforcement heavy. And it has been a fight again to even get open the space up and actually move some of those tactics away. The security challenge is always there but I think part of that is that CVE or actually religious freedom. I'm gonna talk about religious freedoms especially that is that we need to be upholding human rights. And that has to be done whether we're talking about just the security side, whether we're talking about countering violent extremism whether we're talking about any aspect of this space and we have to make sure that those are upheld. So if we're actually doing security well we would actually be upholding the whole spectrum of human rights and CVE programming would actually also be compliant. Now that doesn't take away the risk to actually the stakeholders or the implementers on the ground because at the end of the day you're dealing with people who hate you for what you're doing. They have a vested interest. These are political violence. So there's a vested interest in terms of the outcomes. So we absolutely have to deal with that space. How do you keep people safe on the ground? The other challenge that we face is when civil society starts to engage in this space it ends up often being co-opted or contaminated by the idea that you are now a stooge for the government. And so the assumption then becomes that if you're actually trying to work in your own community just for safety, security, you are somehow doing something against the government. And so again, and it goes back to there's a lot of assumptions that CVE is necessarily cannot possibly uphold human rights. And it's rights of not just religious freedom but also on privacy and freedom of thought, a whole spectrum of issues. So we grapple with it all the time. We have seen there are certain places where the way they have dealt with it is by changing the labels, right? So instead of acknowledging the intent of the program they have relabeled it as something else. But that sort of deception for the community always comes back and bites you later. We have seen the co-opting of other agendas. So things like women's empowerment, women's education, voting rights, et cetera have suddenly been relabeled as CVE. And that is also contaminated agendas because those are things that you have to do no matter what, whether you were dealing with violent extremism or not. So again, this space which has spread out to be everything has actually made the situation worse and then dealing with the top down, very coercive, controlling counter-terrorism tactics which in many cases have actually backfired and have actually been the cause of more grievances has actually made it worse. So there's no balance, there's no balance which anyone has achieved and everyone is constantly struggling in that space. So I wanna go back to Oliver really quickly because your office has worked with ministries of religion around the world. Have you seen examples of where that challenge has been navigated well or not well? Doing what we see in the new Potomac plan of action of ensuring that false accusations of extremism are not used as a pretext to suppress the freedom of individuals to express their religious beliefs. Well, I think some in the room may be familiar with CVE national action plans or sometimes they're called national strategies and they're being developed and increasingly being implemented in dozens of countries around the world from Western Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa to different parts of Asia. And the idea here is that you have security and non-security components of government and that would include in countries where you have a ministry or religious affairs department that they would be part of the effort. And to the extent that those processes can be really whole of government and really engaging with society and with civil society actors and then can be implemented moving forward, you have a framework and you have a political commitment and buy-in from the top to do this work and to do it in ways that try to navigate these various sensitivities that we've been talking about and that we've been touching on. That is a framework and the different UN agencies and a number of Western governments are supporting or providing the technical assistance to develop or I should say to assist other governments in developing and implementing these plans. But the trick of course is in the implementation. And so with that, I wanna go back to Sheikh Bin Baya who's both, you are both a renowned Islamic scholar but you're also a former government official in Mauritania. And so I would love to hear your perspective on how you think policymakers and practitioners from the US who are concerned about both religious freedom and countering violent extremism can best work with governments from Muslim majority countries given these tensions. Sheikh Khalil, the translation is working on channel six, right? The translation? The translation is now available on the first channel. Sheikh Hamza is now translating. As I said, the issue is complicated. And so what I advise is that all of you should focus on one meaning. If you want to intervene in a region or in a specific country, you should study the situation in this country because the issue of religious freedom in a country that differs from that in another country. The nature of it actually differs in different places. If there's a lot of very strong intervention, there'll actually be a reaction that could be very negative and then the actual results could be even worse. So this freedom that we want and that we're all seeking in certain situations could end up creating, if there's an attempt to force it upon people, it'll upset the social order. And also we can't generalize this principle in every situation. The United States needs to understand that the world is different and there's certain things that are relative to different countries. There are absolutes but there are also situations that are nuanced socially. For instance, you have organizations and you have authorities on the ground and they might understand their situation better than people outside. And if you want to take certain things and try to implement them and you don't fully comprehend the situation on the ground, it can end up creating a lot of problems and having negative effects. So the counter narrative to extremism and violent extremism. I think one of the major challenges for religions and religious leaders is that it's a kind of weaknesses within the religious narrative in the framework of CVE because in general the narrative is more a preaching narrative and more I would say related to a kind of absolute truth that is being preached to the society. When we worked with youth and religious leaders and we studied the situation and why youth are and especially youth attracted by extremist narratives. So we put them together with religious leaders and we tried to initiate this dialogue and I'm still remembering this answer from one of the youths who was saying to the addressing the religious leaders and telling them, look at a film of ISIS. What they show in their films. First they show the action and then they finish the film by quoting some verses and saying this action was according to this teaching and this young man was saying telling religious leaders in a very strong way what you do is always the opposite. You start by the teaching and then we don't see the action and this is why we are more attracted by those who are called extremist ISIS or things like this. So what we tried to develop with them in fact we came out with a concept that we called existential narrative because the counter narrative has its own weaknesses because it's a preaching narrative and it's not yet showing the action while an existential narrative is always engaging youth engaging community and not just those who preach not just the leadership but engaging youth community with their also religious leadership. I will very briefly give you an example we identified two young people in Upper Egypt in the side in a very remote area in a village where there had been many conflicts between cops and Muslims cops trying to build a church, Muslims build this church and there were victims in this village. We identified two persons one a Coptic man and a Muslim woman working together very simply on peace education for the youth of the village together Christian and Muslim in the place of this church where they are trying to build the church. We simply went there we filmed them we put online two minutes film of their stories and one week they got more than two million views and then they became a national story everybody in Egypt started talking about Samar and Hana they were received by a TV channel and then the Ministry of Youth and Education gave them this year the award of coexistence I mean the heroes for coexistence and so they became modelled for so many other cops or Muslims in Egypt to do the same and now I mean religious leaders with whom we work they start they preaching by showing the story by saying I mean there are acts we are able to make difference on the ground and this story is based in the gospel and that's the teaching and in the Quran and the teaching this is exactly I would say the strategy of extremists and it's so important for two reasons and I will finish with this first reason it's so important because it rebuilds the bridges between the grassroots level and the leadership so the religious leaders are not just preaching in an abstract way they are talking about the life of their communities and the community also is based on the teaching is trying to live and to show something that they are being lived this is the first level of importance and second level of importance is what I call inter-religious social responsibility which move the narrative from a stigma where we are usually in these societies we accuse a community to be responsible of the extremism or of violence that is happening in society we move the narrative to the responsibility of people of faith how they can face together the challenges where these challenges are not anymore identified to a community but to their direct source of problems the people who are causing the extremists who are causing these problems are not any community that is responsible of these problems thank you we have a whole pile of questions and not much time so I'm going to ask people to try to give a short answer so we can get to a number of these but here's the first one can hate speech or insightful rhetoric be justified under religious freedom big question let me ask another one you think about the answer we're going to come back to that but I'm going to give you a minute to think about it very difficult question freedom is always something that an insane when he feels that he's absolutely free sometimes he'll go to an extreme or go beyond the norms of a society so it goes back to really standards and normative practices in a society so people should understand that they're part of a society and we have to educate people we have to have a balanced type of education where people don't use their freedom to do things that are harmful let me add something to this I like what father Fadi said you know to give awards to people that are doing these actions for instance we gave award to some priest in Central African Republic because they've done incredible work helping conviviality between Muslims and Christians so when you find religious leadership that have influence in a society and that are balanced and are teaching people in a good way and we should support their work and make sure that they're honored we can't control people's thoughts and we can't control their actions but we can help to illuminate their thoughts and to better their actions Violent extremism as an issue specifically within Islam has using non-religious terms like honoring violent extremism and community resilience been helpful in changing public perception and what is the role of the media in broadening the definition and understanding of violent extremism beyond any one religion or beyond religion in general tackle that you guys are tough not directly about this question but about the previous one and it's related to this question also but in liberal societies it's very normal for people to believe and to say something that is really can be harming morally I would say harming the others and this is a huge issue between the and Sheikh Abdullah was saying that we should talk about and defend religious freedom with civil peace and social peace and try to keep them together it's not meaning that we have to put a condition for religious freedom religious freedom is absolute but when I am practicing my religious freedom I should be aware also that religious freedom is about practicing religion and practicing religion is about being responsible and first responsibility of a believer is to preserve peace and harmony within society and this why I think we should definitely I would always and absolutely defend the right for religious freedom but at the same time we should do the same efforts also within each community and socially also to make people responsible of their acts and their expressions also when it offends the others and this is a huge problem we worked on it two years with experts from different communities especially Christian and Muslim about the issue of takfir I mean accusing the other of being a disbeliever how this accusation which is based also on religious freedom I can believe whatever I want I mean about the others and their beliefs but how this attitude and this way of thinking is how we can show that is counterproductive for faith itself and so how we can make from religious freedom a challenge for theology and to go for a more inclusive theology and more inclusive theological development I think this is a crucial question I wanted to go back to this question because the second one I think it was more related to maybe American context but definitely perceptions are very powerful and working on perception is a top priority either in the society here in the world I mean media is something that has a huge power and we are still lacking in using media I mean the power of media to spread the message we want to spread it just to give you an example we launched last year a platform called which means pluralism online platform our aim the target I gave to the team of this platform is to reach one million person in the Arab world in one year in one year the result was we reached 23 million person which was an amazing and very surprising result and for me it's a clear answer that especially the young people because out of these 23 million 65% are between 18 and 35 years old which means that the youth in the Arab world are looking for these values of pluralism and this narrative that is based on pluralism and inclusivity but they are not easy because they cannot easily find these on the online media and this is why I mean it's crucial also to give the place the media deserves in this battle Thank you I'm going to add another question and Oliver and Humaru you can answer whichever of the other two or this one advice for practitioners what have you seen go wrong with approaches on religious engagement by international agencies and NGOs any of the questions on the table I'll take the second question like Jeopardy that's the sort of and that's around the labels right the labels the language changing labels the role of media so well communities are smart right changing the label from countering violent extremism to now calling it community engagement to then calling it community resilience people get it they understand that they are trying to be duped in that sense right so no has it helped no and part of this is that if the baseline you do not have a trusted relationship between the governance and the population there's always going to be suspicion and so the re-labels are never going to be sufficient so there's a place where again the state has to have build relationships with society and Humaru just so we get one more question if it's related to that how do we motivate those in power to be inclusive that's another one that's a whole other one but I also want to take this actually back to what happens with media right and is it only when we talk about violent extremism the assumption is it's only about it's related to al-Qaeda, ISIS etc right the black flaggers the whole spectrum of black flagger movements and yes media has a role to play with it but certainly so do our legal systems and so do policy making bodies if you look at the United Nations Security Council right and the preamble for pretty much every resolution which comes out it says this is not about any one religion do not discriminate against any religion and yet when it defines what it is you're looking at it restricts it to al-Qaeda, ISIS and affiliates so it actually does not open the space to other types of violent extremist groups even though they are alive and thriving in so many countries right so it's at that level in the media space and I'm going to let me talk about the US context because we have a very special context over here because if you look at for example when Dylan Roof he shot and killed so many people in the church he was charged with a hate crime and not with domestic terrorism and the question is why because the media will report what is actually happening in the courts and that's because in our legal system at the federal level right we have a definition of domestic terrorism but there are no criminal charges associated with it so they can't even prosecute him for domestic terrorism because the prosecutors don't have the tools for it so what you end up with is when the media reports so if it's a Muslim it's going to be here is the terrorist charges because it's associated with the foreign terrorist organization and it gets a terrorism label but then if you look at the domestic cases which are happening the domestic with other groups of white supremacists etc with the tools like I just don't even exist and so the legal system has a huge role to play in how we manage the space yes media has a role it certainly sensationalizes but they are not the only stakeholders in the space great thank you we're out of time but Oliver I want to give you a chance to weigh in on very provocative questions so globally the terminology differs from country to country there are debates within and across countries about is it preventing violent extremism countering violent extremism in many in western Europe call it counter radicalization and have done so for years but the interesting thing is that as soon as you stop talking about terminology and you start talking about the nature and the substance of the response people are pretty much on the same page you talk about what makes for an effective counter narrative or doesn't what makes for good community engagement or what doesn't then people are on the same page and the conversation flows because you're talking about responses and people can agree in some cases it's almost intuitive that multiple actors in a community not just religious leaders but educators and social workers and youth themselves all have to be involved in this effort and it's very hard to disagree with almost intuitive approaches like that if you're going to do this work effectively on the media I think that there have been a lot of media training programs around the world that have been going on for decades and journalists are taught skills like investigative reporting and this sort of thing and to the extent that that can be applied to understanding terrorism, radicalization recruitment, what drives it, what doesn't and being able to help inform media or journalists by getting them together with researchers locally who know this topic I think that that would be very helpful great thanks Oliver Shachman I want to give you the last word if you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with us on maybe words of encouragement on how to best move forward with this challenge in the name of God these dialogues are very important but maybe even more important is we basically create small groups so we can look for putting new approaches and new solutions to these problems we can talk around the same issues and we can talk to a lot of different groups but very often we don't see the fruits of these things you have tens of institutes if they visited for instance Abu Dhabi if they visited us there or our center in Morocco they have questions and they visited different places then it would be possible for them to kind of get a sound understanding on the ground of what's happening each of us know what's happening in our areas especially things surrounding freedom and trying to prevent extremism but have we arrived together all of us we some of us have arrived and understand these problems we have a group in Morocco that's working on concept we have 50 students that are just dealing with the concepts of these issues for instance the concepts surrounding extremism and also to do a type of renewal of just religious discourse to create a new religious discourse that we can reach large numbers for instance in the form of promoting peace we're now we've started an encyclopedia of peace and we have a journal called peace so we also coexistence trying to promote these values if we want to really strengthen these and to really form a leadership that can promote these and then they we can treat we can basically train the trainers so that they can go out and then have a much broader influence this alliance of virtue for instance we have some of the leadership here Bob Roberts and others Imam Majid didn't come today but he's also involved in that he's preoccupied so this could really do a lot of good because we're trying to give examples for people we need a religious leadership that says we're friends we're together we're all on the same planet we're all living in the same planet now we're living in a time you can't choose who you're living next to we're in a new world and so we should be sharing it together I want to give a quick thank you also to the wonderful USIP peace and religion team Suzy, Paul Washa, Melissa thank you and once again we invite everyone to join us in the Leland Terrace which is just up the stairs have some refreshments learn more about the work of USIP, IRI and search for common ground and we will begin our next panel on interfaith peace building and religious freedom back here at 115 and for those who would like to participate in Friday prayers we have space downstairs and our team will guide you to that space thank you everybody and see you soon I forgot to say good bye sheikh wanted to everybody one moment sheikh just a final message the sheikh said he really wanted to express a special greetings to congressman Frank Wolf for his remarks as well as the presence of cardinal John on icon from Nigeria please give him and the congressman a round of applause please thank you so much