Off the wire
• Feature: Kenyan teachers hit with high interest rates amid salary dispute  • Two U.S. astronauts conduct spacewalk  • France not to extradite "Air Cocaine" pilots: official  • Madrid hosts conference on NATO strategy  • France to take part in Vienna talks on Syria  • WTA Finals results  • Chinese smartphone supplier ZTE expands basketball sponsorships to five NBA teams  • Egypt's Sisi extends emergency state in N. Sinai by 3 months  • Feature: Refugees stuck in Greece with no place to go further in Europe  • Chinese state councilor meets UN General Assembly president  
You are here: 　 Home

Madrid reflects on how to fight terrorism

Xinhua, October 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

The city of Madrid is hosting a conference to shape policy dialogue on preventing and countering violent extremism with the view to fighting terrorism.

The two-day event, called "MADRID+10", was inaugurated on Tuesday by Spanish King Felipe VI, and will be brought to a close on Wednesday by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The conference gathered around 200 experts from around the world, along with important political figures such as former presidents of Mexico and Colombia, Felipe Calderon and Andres Pastrana, and the current president of Tunisia, Habid Essid.

They discussed and analyzed different aspects of terrorism such as prevention, radicalization and violent extremism.

Manuela Carmena, Mayor of Madrid, emphasized at the conference the importance of peace in education to fight terrorism.

"We lack precisely this peace for education, this necessary antidote against this extreme violence that comes from other little violence that appear in our lives," Carmena said.

King Felipe VI highlighted the importance of the event as it raised awareness of the danger terrorism poses and the threat that the process of radicalization poses to societies and humankind in general.

"Today, new forms of extremism and radicalization go beyond borders; they acquire their own territorial basis and threaten our societies, undermining human rights and democracy at a global level. This requires new responses, responses that need to be global," he said.

Felipe VI called for a new consensus on fighting extremism, radicalization and violence with efficiency.

The conference has its roots in the Madrid terrorist attack in 2004 when 10 bombs exploded in four trains in the capital killing 191 people.

On the first anniversary of tragedy, the Club de Madrid had organized a conference entitled "International Summit on Democracy Terrorism and Security" that gathered around 1,000 world leaders and experts who examined the causes of terrorism and how to confront it.

Ten years later, the Club de Madrid and The International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) organized this event. Endit