Seminar on Extremism in Europe / Amsterdam – Outcomes

EUJS Seminar on Extremism in Europe, Amsterdam, June 23-28 2013

At the end of June, EUJS organized an in-depth seminar on the rising threat of extremisim on the European continent. Bringing their varied backgrounds to the forefront, participants discussed the differing situations of political extremism in France, Greece, Hungary, the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands and debated the best ways to combat these threats.

This exciting and informative seminar featured presentations on a wide variety of topics. Robbert Baruch shared his insight about lobbying strategies and ways to wield political influence without holding political office. 

Benjamin Abtan from EGAM, and Guy Muller from CIDI gave an overview of European efforts to combat racism throughout the world and hate speech in person and online.

Participants also had the opportunity to engage in a discussion with Ronald Eissens, General Director and co-founder of the International Human Rights and anti-racism NGO Magenta Foundation and Alexander Goldberg, trustee of Rene Cassin. These two great speakers led discussions and debates about the disasterous ‘anti-racism’ Durban conference of 2001, strategies and methods to combat online hate speech, and the challenges of human rights advocacy in the modern era.

The in-depth discussions were also directed towards sensitive issues such as extremism in minority communities in Europe and how to challenge the status quo.

Following the many hours spent debating and studying these issues, all participants  convened to draft a manifesto that express the concerns of EUJS about growing European extremist movements and call upon European and national institutions to act more forcefully to counter these threats to the peaceful and safe foundations Europe had built.