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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday forewarned against tackling the problem of violent extremism only through military means and called on government to avoid counter-terrorism measures which could lead to human rights abuses.
At a special meeting of the UN Security Council on counter-terrorism, Ban said that the UN was looking at different ways in which it can address the problem of violent extremism by working with communities “at the grassroots level”.
“We must continue to think more deeply into the fundamental conditions that allow extremism to thrive. Looking at these challenges solely through a military lens has shown its limits”, Ban told the council.
He also warned against targeting Muslim communities in the world using counter-terrorism as a pretext, saying that “such abuses are not only immoral, they are counter-productive”.
The meeting was a follow up to a resolution adopted by the council in August aimed at stopping the flow of foreign fighters and funding to militant groups battling in Syria and Iraq.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who chaired the meeting, called on the world to ramp up efforts towards confronting the threat posed by the groups Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq and the al-Nusra front, the al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.
She said that the militants’ “hateful ideologies are an affront to the values of the United Nations”, and proposed the appointment of a UN envoy to build a “coordinated and strategic message’ to counter the spread of violent extremism. Such an envoy would guide governments and help them develop the capacity to tackle extremists, who make savvy use of digital platforms.
In a unanimous statement, the Security Council stressed the need “to improve the visibility and effectiveness of the U.N.’s role in countering the spread of violent extremist ideologies that are conducive to terrorism”.