Defence IQ: UK Government 'Excluding Conservative Groups' From Counter Extremism Work

LONDON, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Defence IQ recently interviewed Hanif Qadir, co-founder of Active Change Foundation, he condemned the governments Prevent campaign and its attitude towards religion-centred P/CVE groups.

Hanif Qadir, who has been engaged with the Home Office and Counter-extremist campaigns for over a decade, has decried an apparent reversal in strategy from the UK and other nations when it comes to funding and collaboration with these types of organisations. Read the full interview here > http://bit.ly/2oyFdEu

In this interview Qadir goes into the role the private sector has to play in any CVE effort, but are increasingly finding it hard to access neither funding or support, he believes this is due to the mistaken notion that conservative groups are aligned with extremism.

In terms of the UK's current Prevent Strategy, Qadir does not agree that this strategy is on point he mentions how we are moving away from where we were in 2011-2012, a time when we he thinks the UK was "almost hitting the nail on its head"."The whole game has changed yet again, especially sine January 2017. Any CVE effort must adapt rapidly, but firstly we need to understand what is changing and why - something that requires real time and effective engagement with communities' right across the board ."

He goes on to outline that the government must change their approach and reason with the fact that no community should be left out of the CVE engagement space and in terms of how to asses the groups , it is a matter of looking at the history and community reach capabilities of every organisation.

Qadir will be speaking at this year's CVE forum in London on 20-22 June, the annual symposium brings together communication professionals and government agencies from around the world to discuss the successes, challenges and failures, and novel methods for communication against the lure of extremism. Download the programme for this event here > http://bit.ly/2mhdBW7

Media enquiries: Olivia Timmins, enquire@iqpc.co.uk, Tel: +44(0)207-036-1300