Centre for Turkey Studies in Barcelona as a Guest of the European Commission
October 2012
The Centre for Turkey Studies representing Turkey among 18 other countries joined the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) working group; one of the European Commission workshops. The two-day long conference took place in Barcelona on the 10th and 11th October 2012. On behalf of Turkey, two associations participated in the conference: the Centre for Turkey Studies and Platform for Global Challenges.
The conference hosted 40 participants over 18 countries including primarily Germany, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Poland and the UK. In his opening speech, Dr. Harald Weilnboeck from the RAN organisation stated that the first conference was held in Stockholm with a relatively small group, but the Barcelona conference attracted a larger audience. He continued to summarise the RAN’s work. The title of the RAN-Working Group was “Deradicalisation Practitioners and Interventions”. Dr. Herald pointed out that the aim of the workshop was to exchange experiences and ideas about the young people at risk, the methods of working with them and the situation of the issue locally in the participant countries in order to generate recommendations for the European Commission. In that context, the conference was critically important.
The participant countries emphasized that the violence related crimes differed in each country just as the law, justice and punishment dynamics of each country were dissimilar. The participants suggested that the European Commission should apply stronger policies in order to reduce violence related crimes.
Various highly important and active NGOs and associations joined the conference: Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs from Slovakia, Institute for International Relations from Czech Republic, MhtConsult from Denmark, Megallo Group Foundation for Addicts Hungary, Libera Associazioni Nomi e Numeri Contro le Mafie from Italy, Violence Prevention Network from Germany, Institute for Strategic Dialogue from the UK, Never Again Association from Poland, Guardia Civil from Spain, etc. Being one of those leading NGOs, Centre for Turkey Studies had the honour and pleasure of joining such a comprehensive event. The director of the centre, Ibrahim Dogus, stated that the centre will continue to join and support such important social responsibility projects as the centre will participate in an upcoming joint conference held in Brussels in December and January.