Foreign fighters are travelling to Syria and Iraq on an ‘unprecedented scale’ according to a recent United Nations report, which finds that 15,000 people have travelled to fight alongside the Islamic State (ISIS) and similar extremist groups.
The British and other governments are now left with the difficult decision of how to treat these individuals if they do return. A new Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill proposing new counter-terror powers including temporary exclusion orders and the powers to seize passports of terror suspects, has been met by concern that it threatens civil liberties.
We will be joined by a panel of experts to debate this new bill and the measures it sets out. We will be examining the problem faced by the UK and others governments, and discussing long term solutions.
The panel:
Shiraz Maher is a senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ISCR) at King’s College. He is currently coordinating the centre’s research on the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts. He also researches the development of Salafi-Jihadi ideology, and jihadist organisations in the broader Middle East.
Moazzam Begg is one of nine British citizens who were held at Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo Bay by the US government. He was released on January 25 2005 without charge. He is the director of Cageprisoners and author of Enemy Combatant. This year he was imprisoned by the British government on charges relating to Syria, his case was later dropped.
Additional speakers to be announced.
