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Prof Barkat tells the UK support Bangladesh in countering extremism

52Ansar Ahmed Ullah ::

Provide support to Bangladesh by sharing knowledge on countering radicalisation, provide assistance in cyber space management and monitor UK based NGOs with links to religious extremism said Prof Abul Barkat.

Prof Abul Barkat, Professor and Chair, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka was speaking at a seminar titled ‘Bangladesh and the UK: Countering Religious Radicalisation & Extremism’ was held on Wed 9 Sept at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Central London.

In his presentation he provided an analysis of the economic and political strengths of the Islamist forces in Bangladesh within a political economy framework. Prof Barkat said the political economy of religious fundamentalism and extremism can be viewed as a concentrated expression of
religion based communal politics aimed at capturing state power using religion as a pretext.

Another speaker Nigel Inkster, IISS Director for Transnational Threats & Political Risk covered the Islamist tendency within the UK Bengali diaspora.

The seminar was organised on the backdrop of Bangladesh being the third-largest Muslim-majority country in the world facing challenges from rising religious radicalisation and extremism.

The discussion that followed the speakers examined the political economy of religious fundamentalism and extremism in Bangladesh and the efforts of the Bangladeshi government & civil society to counter extremism. It will also focused on how best to counter the radicalisation of a small minority of the British Bengali diaspora in the UK.

The seminar was chaired by Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, Senior Fellow for South Asia, IISS with closing address from Md Abdul Hannan, Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to the UK.