APS : Wednesday, 07 September 2016
ALGIERS- Democracy is “the best bulwark against violent extremism and terrorism,” affirmed Wednesday in Algiers Minister of Maghreb Affairs, African Union and Arab League Abdelkader Messahel.
“Democracy is the best bulwark against violent extremism and terrorism as it allows revealing their dangers, isolating and marginalizing them,” said Messahel in his speech at the opening of the international workshop on the role of the democracy in preventing and combating violent extremism and terrorism.
He said that “the democracy, the rule of law, political pluralism and individual and collective freedoms, tolerance, dialogue, the respect of others and coexistence in diversity are the values that unite our peoples and countries and contribute to establishing peace and stability and achieving social progress and well-being of individuals.”
“The destruction of these values is a goal shared by the terrorist groups, of all faiths, in favour of establishing a theocratic model of governance repressing the individual and collective freedoms and founded on the logic of exclusion,” he said.
Messahel said that “this truth imposes the course of action to be taken and to be respected in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism.”
“To be effective, this fight must be imperatively respectful of the rule of law, human rights and democracy,” he added.
For him, this fight “must meet some minimum requirements, including the upstream implementation of the policies and strategies of fight against the factors of exclusion, radicalisation and marginalization, the continuous and sustained expansion of spaces of rights and individual and collective freedoms, essential to the development of individuals, progress of societies, prosperity of economies and the development of countries.”
