U.N. secretary general urges to counter violent extremism to handle refugee crisis

Nov 02, 2015 Over 250 high level experts, including former world leaders, recently gathered in Madrid to discuss principles that could be translated into policies and measures to prevent extremism.

While addressing the meeting, UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon insisted that violent extremism is not limited to a specific region or religion.

“Violent extremism is a diverse phenomenon. It is indeed no exclusive to any one region or system of belief. Violent extremism which breeds terrorism posses a direct assault on the U.N. charter, the United Nations universal declaration of human rights and values on which the United Nations was founded. It affects all areas of the world of the United Nations. It undermines international peace and security and threatens to reverse important developments of progress,”

The two-day meeting, which was aimed at creating a document titled the “Global Consensus”, featured opinion sharing by officials and world leader.

Ban Ki-moon also highlighted the importance of designing a security response to extremism.

“Now we have 60 million refugees around the world. This is the largest ever since the end of the Second World War. We have four and a half million Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousand people fleeing their countries now. European countries, all of them, without almost exception, they are now struggling to handle these issues. Countering this threat through effective security responses should remain a priority,”