LONDON, October 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ —

Warning over Wahhabism, influence of internet and media focus on extremist groups at security and cohesion debate

Politicians, think tanks, religious leaders and academics came together for a landmark conference at the European Parliament to highlight the threats posed by religious extremism and to seek ways of combating them.

Murder in the Name of God: a policy debate in the European Parliament on the rise of extremism internationally and its impact on European security and cohesion (20th September 2011) was hosted by Dr Charles Tannock MEP and the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

More than 350 delegates from 16 countries heard Dr Charles Tannock MEP, Member of Human Rights Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee and Vice-President of the EP delegation to NATO Parliamentary Assembly; Mr Rafiq Hayat, National UK President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, Dr John Bew, Co-Director, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation; and Sofia Lemmetyinen, EU Liaison Officer for Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

The event also featured a special message from His Holiness Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad in which he called for greater tolerance and for the respect of human rights, noting that:

“Polarisation has beset the world, whether it is manifested in the discriminatory laws of Pakistan, Indonesia or Saudi Arabia that are used to target smaller religious groups, or the laws in Western countries that target manifestations of religious observances, such as the use of the hijab in France or the minaret in Switzerland.

“Extremist ideology has an international impact. If the countries do not check such extremism then it will spread.”

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