COUNTER-MESSAGING AND THE ROLE OF DISILLUSIONED FORMER FIGHTERS

Mentor Vrajolli, Senior Researcher and Secretary of Kosovar Center for Security Studies (KCSS) is participating on the Countering Foreign Terrorist Fighter (FTF) Recruitment Workshop: Counter-Messaging and the Role of Disillusioned Former Fighters which is taking place in Abu Dhabi from 8th to 10th June 2015.

This three-day workshop has convened government and non-government countering violent extremism (CVE) practitioners to share communication approaches relevant to countering FTF radicalization and recruitment into DA’ESH (ISIS) but will focus on how to leverage disillusioned FTFs for counter-messaging. The use of interviews, testimonials and statements of once inspired FTFs who now denounce the actions of DA’ESH and other terrorist groups can be international counter FTF tools, and their voices are potentially powerful in countering DA’ESH recruitment.  While the counter-FTF role of social media will be a key workshop topic, communications leveraging other types of media – as well as public outreach – also will be showcased.

The aim of this workshop is to serve as a starting point to accomplish the following goals:

-Build on the Global CVE Expo 2014 Communication Network and its projects

-Recognize the value of former FTF as effective messengers

-Encourage project development between different sectors on counter messaging

-Enable participants to identify the development process of counter-messaging and its key components

-Demonstrate how to apply a counter-messaging framework that can be used as a model for regional and local approaches

-Create a network of CVE communicators that will continue to engage and work together in the future

The FTF workshop is hosted by Hedayah, an Abu Dhabi based international CVE center of excellence. The aim of this workshop was to share experiences between the participants on tackling this issue. Therefore all discussions that took place during the entire workshop were based on the Chatham House Rules.