The conference, held on the 12th of February 2014, giving place to speeches held by leaders of organizations that work to prevent violence and harm caused by extremist movements, saw more than 20 attendees, with an overseas participant from Canada also attending. Welcome speeches were held by Helena Josefson, representing the Swedish Department of Justice, and Rachel Briggs from UK's Institute for Strategic Dialouge.
The prime subject of the conference was the importance of community policing, the leading role of ministries, the importance of local municipalities, and the work of NGO-s. In connection with the subject, the participants had the opportunity to attend a presentation held by the leader of an organization, who used to run a far-right extremist group himself, but his personal history made him realize the harmfulness of these ideologies, and presently, he works together with his colleagues (whom earlier also were tied to extremist groups), to extract people from extremist movements, who realized that they do not want to go on anymore, and want out. The leader of the Swedish EXIT organization also held a presentation, furthermore, the leader of Life After Hate, a Canadian exit organization, Tony McAleer also told his story, which shed light on many of the factors that make someone receptive and able to leave the world of extremist groups behind.
Dr. Borbála Fellegi talked about the possible implementation of conflict resolution and restorative techniques, the possibility of forgiveness between victim and perpetrator, and the importance of community dialogue using Foresee's experiences a examples.
The agenda of the conference can be downloaded here.
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