Active youth from the Black Sea region convened in Moldova to formulate policy recommendations on preventing violent extremism

CHISINAU, 3 February 2017 – A group of 14 young men and women from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Turkey and the Russian Federation came together in Chisinau, Moldova, for a two-day workshop to discuss the threat of violent extremism in the Black Sea region. The workshop was convened at the initiative of the Austrian Chairmanship which has identified the prevention of terrorist radicalization as one of its priorities. 

The participants collectively formulated recommendations for policy makers, which will be presented to OSCE participating States and Partners for Co-operation at the 2017 OSCE-wide counter-terrorism conference in Vienna, Austria, on 23-24 May 2017.

“Youth can easily become a target for recruitment of violent extremist groups, however, youth can be – and must be – partners in helping us to mitigate the drivers of radicalization to violence. This presupposes meaningful participation by youth at all levels of this effort,” underscored Ambassador Michael Scanlan, Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova in his welcome remarks to the participants of the workshop.

Participants included young researchers, journalists, social workers, and civil society activists, who are involved in preventing violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism or active in relevant areas, such as addressing intolerance, xenophobia, hate speech, marginalization, disenfranchisement, gangs or hooliganism.

“Youth in our countries don’t get enough opportunities to speak up and share our views on these challenges as we could during this workshop,” said Luka Pertaia, participant from Georgia. “I think that one of the most important issues in the Black Sea region is lack of local research on the drivers of different types of violent extremist ideologies.”

The workshop also included a social media training, organized in co-operation with Facebook and the “OSCE United in Countering Violent Extremism” (#UnitedCVE) campaign. Participants learnt tips and good practices on how to use effectively social media to push back against hate speech online.

“Online hate speech is a societal challenge that is best addressed when governments, civil society and industry work together,” said Gabriella Cseh, head of Public Policy for Central and Eastern Europe, Facebook. “We are proud to partner with OSCE in the #UnitedCVE initiative, it was inspiring to meet today such a colorful group of youth leaders from the Black See region and to discuss with them effective counter speech narratives on social networks.” 

This event, organized by the Austrian OSCE Chairmanship with the support of the OSCE Transnational Threats Department and was hosted by the OSCE Mission to Moldova, is part of the series of sub-regional workshops on youth and the prevention of violent extremism. It will be followed by two more for the Western Balkans and Central Asia. Two workshops were already held for youth from North Africa and Western Europe in 2016, while Austria was chairing the OSCE Mediterranean Contact Group.