Participants in the OSCE Leaders against Intolerance and Violent Extremism training. Photo: OSCE
On 13 December 2022, the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) issued a report on “Civil Society Perspectives: Engagement in Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism in South-East Europe”. that highlighted the role of civil society organizations (CSO) in the development and implementation of comprehensive and integrated counter-terrorism strategies in South-East Europe.
The report presents discussions from a roundtable held on 29 June 2022, which sought to gather the views of civil society groups from South-East Europe (defined as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia). Key findings of the report will be presented in 2023 at the Counter-Terrorism Committee’s (CTC) Open Briefing on South-East European Member States’ implementation of Council resolutions.
The roundtable brought together more than 30 civil society actors from the nine South-East European countries, experts from United Nations offices, as well as from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and other regional organizations.
Drawing upon three different data sources: roundtable discussions, anonymized survey responses and CTED’s engagements with Member States during assessments and follow-up visits on behalf of the CTC, the report provides a snapshot of civil society engagement and involvement in national comprehensive and integrated counter-terrorism strategies, relevant good practices, and associated challenges, in South-East Europe Member States.
Findings indicate that there are varying levels of CSO involvement in national counter-terrorism strategy development and implementation in the sub region. Some States are increasingly realizing the roles of CSOs in preventing and countering violent extremism. As such, these States have incorporated a multi-stakeholder approach in developing national strategies and developed a range of good practices that can be adopted by others. However, this engagement is quite uneven, as in other States, there is limited space for CSO participation in the process. Often, CSO involvement has been perfunctory, and their perspectives not comprehensively reflected in national strategies. Further, distrust between States and CSOs in some cases had caused CSO exclusion from engagement on national strategies in some States.
The extent of the participation of women’s organizations in the implementation of national strategies in South-East Europe has similarly been varied. In a few States, there have been significant strides in gender mainstreaming as well as in including a wide range of stakeholders in the process, but in some States, perspectives from women’s, youth, or minorities were inadequately represented. The report highlighted that some countries in the region are gradually changing their approach and involving women and gendered perspectives in their national strategies.
Despite the unique position that CSOs working on human rights occupy in understanding the root causes of terrorism and violent extremism in societies and to identify the ill-effects of disproportionate counter-terrorism measures, there has reportedly been insufficient consultation with CSOs working on human rights issues in several States. Roundtable participants believed that distrust between authorities and human rights organisations in some States prevented any meaningful exchange on national strategies and often led to security-centric strategies. The report highlighted the importance of integrating human rights in national counter-terrorism strategies and suggested that stronger efforts are needed to involve human rights CSOs in the process at all levels, including capacity building of relevant authorities through promoting human rights education.
The report concludes with a few recommendations: National counter-terrorism strategies should cover all forms of radicalization to terrorism. The development and implementation of such strategies should be inclusive processes, engaging multiple stakeholders. Finally, CSOs should be treated as equal partners and be free of reprisals. In this regard, developing good practices that provide guidelines on how CSOs can work collaboratively with Government agencies in a less securitized approach is crucial.
Read full report here.