south-asian-militant-groups-and-global-jihad-in-2015

QUILL IAM
Reform laws on blasphemy, as they strengthen the stance of
Islamist extremists.
Undertake research based on public health frameworks to
investigate the causes and consequences of violent and non-violent
extremism, following new initiatives to treat violent extremism as
a public health issue. The WHO’s Violence Prevention Alliance has
recently provided a public health framework to investigate and
understand the causes and consequences of violence. These
include individual, relationship, community-based, and societal
approaches to prevent violence. Extending such work to tackle
violent radicalization and terrorism is a natural next step, though
not yet done. Routine health surveys and censuses might ask about
aspects of violent radicalization and group cohesion as relevant
health and social issues, and not only as criminal justice issues 2 .
This is crucial in an environment of widespread violence, where
there are low levels of social and political education.
Foster and facilitate counter-narratives in countries where
Islamism as an ideology is more potent, such as in Pakistan and
Afghanistan. The main risk behind the power of the IS brand is that
its narratives on apostasy (takfiri) will go mainstream and
exacerbate the sectarianism that is presently growing in South
Asia. This is IS's market niche, and given that Jundullah - a
traditionally sectarian, newly declared ally of IS - has claimed
credit for the Shia mosque bombing in January 2015, as well as
several other attacks on the Shia community, it is increasingly a
theme that is coming to the fore, and one that counter-narratives
could address specifically.
Encourage cooperation between the states of India, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan to defeat the new transnational terrorist force of the
Islamic State, which differs ideologically from entrenched and
established terrorist groups in the region. Sharing of information,
and social and political initiatives between bordering states, would
reduce the threat of extremism spilling over from one nation to
another.
T o C i v i l Society C o m m unities and Gro ups :
The threat to civil society activities and activists in Pakistan and
Afghanistan is becoming increasingly worrying. Following the
murder of Sabeen Mahmud in April 2015, we strongly encourage
governments to assume responsibility for increasing the security
of its citizens as well as to provide the institutional and financial
support to help develop initiatives that create safe spaces for
activism, engagement and debate, such as Mahmud’s The Second
Floor (T2F).
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