Theresa May to attend Obama summit on tackling violent extremism
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Version 0 of 1. The home secretary, Theresa May, will attend a summit in Washington on tackling violent extremism, called by Barack Obama after the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris. The international conference comes within days of the murder of two people by a suspected Islamist in Copenhagen, and the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by Islamic State (Isis) militants in Libya. The White House has been forced to defend the decision not to single out Islamist terrorism for attention at the conference, which will also discuss threats from other sources. “You can call them what you want; we are calling them terrorists,” a senior administration official told reporters. “We are not treating these people as part of a religion.” The US vice-president, Joe Biden, opened the summit by meeting mayors from Los Angeles, Boston and Minneapolis/Saint Paul, which have each been running pilot studies on tackling extremism in local communities. Obama is scheduled to speak to the conference from the White House on Wednesday, then address guests including May and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at the US State Department on Thursday. The conference is expected to produce an action plan leading to a second meeting before the opening of the UN general assembly in September. Announcing plans for the summit in January, the White House said the event would “highlight domestic and international efforts to prevent violent extremists and their supporters from radicalising, recruiting or inspiring individuals or groups in the United States and abroad to commit acts of violence”. It builds on a strategy Obama produced in 2011 to prevent violent extremism domestically. The summit will focus on the themes of “community engagement, religious leader engagement and the role of the private sector and tech community” to “better understand, identify, and prevent the cycle of radicalisation to violence at home in the United States and abroad”, said a spokesman. A Home Office spokesman in London said: “Terrorists and extremists use a range of methods, including social media, to promote their twisted ideology and radicalise the vulnerable, and we are already taking robust action to stop them through our Prevent strategy. “This summit will provide a good opportunity to discuss these issues with international partners, with the aim of developing a joint approach to tackle this worldwide phenomenon.” |