Countering Extremism: A Problem for Civil Society

Posted: February 16th, 2017

By Haras Rafiq

Haras Rafiq is Quilliam's CEO and an Executive Board Member. He is currently a member of Prime Minister's Community Engagement Forum (CEF) Task Force and was formerly a member of the UK Government's task force looking at countering extremism in response to the 2005 terrorist bombings in London, as well as being a peer mentor for IDeA - advising regional government. He is also a member of the Advisory Group on Online Terrorist Propaganda at Europol's European Counter-terrorism Centre (ECTC). Haras is also a trustee for the Franco British Council. Haras is regularly featured in the media as a commentator and has been a cultural ambassador through the UK Government's Projecting British Islam initiative. Haras has also served on the North West Board of the Mosaic initiative, which was initiated by HRH Prince Charles, and aimed at mentoring youngsters to become contributing members of society.

The Cipher Brief‘s Executive Producer and Reporter Leone Lakhani, spoke with Haras Rafiq, CEO of Quilliam, to discuss how the organization works to counter the narratives propagated by extremist groups. According to Rafiq, to effectively combat extremist narratives, we have to “use all the tools available to us, especially social media, because that’s one of the biggest ways to get messages out quickly,” and ensure that the messaging is “targeted so that every single person who wants to get involved in this understands what his or her role is.”

The Cipher Brief: One major counterterrorism challenge is combatting the sticky messages disseminated by extremist groups, which appeal and resonate with the disaffected, the disillusioned, and those who are struggling with their identity. How do you create an alternative message to these people and how do you sell it?

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