The White House will host a meeting with tech firms about “violent extremism online”

Aug 8, 2019   Forbes

Topline: The White House will host a meeting with tech firms on Friday about “violent extremism online” in the wake of last weekend’s mass shootings, which raised questions over the role of Web services companies in moderating hate speech on the internet.

• White House spokesperson Judd Deere said on Wednesday that the meeting will include “senior administration officials” and representatives from a “range of companies.”
• The announcement followed a visit by President Donald Trump to El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday, where he met with survivors and first responders. His visit was met with protests, while El Paso Congresswoman Veronica Escobar condemned Trump’s “racist and hateful words & actions.”
• The suspected El Paso gunman, who killed 22 people on Saturday when he attacked Walmart shoppers, posted a hate-filled manifesto targeting the Hispanic community on extremist message board 8chan, minutes before the attack.  

What we don’t know: Which firms will attend or whether Trump will be present.

Key background: The meeting follows a pledge by Trump to order the Department of Justice to work with state and federal agencies, as well as social media companies, to “develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike.”

Pope: let’s pledge to ban anti-Semitism from humanity

APNews  November 5, 2018
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is urging efforts to ensure that anti-Semitism is “banned from the human community.”

Francis lamented current anti-Semitic attitudes as he greeted visiting rabbis from the World Congress of Mountain Jews from the Caucasus at the Vatican Monday. He didn’t mention last month’s massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. But he referred to the upcoming 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, when German Nazis attacked Jews and their property, and the recent 75th anniversary of the roundup and deportation of Jews in Rome, when the city was under Nazi occupation.

Francis said: “Sadly, anti-Semitic attitudes are also present in our own times. As I have often repeated, a Christian cannot be an anti-Semite; we share the same roots.”

He added: “We are called to commit ourselves to ensure anti-Semitism is banned from the human community.”

Global Islam Body Demands Europe Ban Religious Hate Speech

 

Breitbart  12 Apr 2018

Europe must increase its efforts to integrate Muslims and eradicate religious hate speech, Muslim World League (MWL) chief Mohammed al-Issa has declared.

“We believe that European countries, where there is much debate now, and other countries around the world … need to enhance national assimilation programmes and criminalise hatred and contempt for adherents of religions because this threatens the safety of the community,” he toldReuters in an interview.

Without giving specific details, the wealthy Saudi figure told the international news agency that the MWL “has programmes and curricula that enhance national assimilation and which can courageously and forcefully confront all forms of extremism, as well as special programmes to thwart efforts to infiltrate the Muslim community”.

Widely regarded a promoter of the Kingdom’s fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology which critics allege is the basis for jihadi violence across the globe, the MWL is very active in nations of Europe which have a large number of Muslim residents, such as Britain and France.

As well as encouraging followers of Islam to be more religiously observant and promoting global solidarity among Muslims, the body also seeks to propagate a conservative brand of the religion and convert nonbelievers, according to the Pew Research Center.

Pope Francis is expected to make his first visit to Scotland to sign a charter against extremism.

POPE Francis is expected to make his first visit to Scotland to sign a charter against extremism.

The leader of the Catholic leader is understood to be a surprise addition to an event at St Andrews University in September.

It would be his first visit to the UK in three years.

Leaders from different religions, diplomatic and community leaders will all gather in the Fife town to sign a 10-point declaration calling on all faiths to unite against radicalsation.

It already has the support of Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

The Pope has spoken out against the terrorist groups who brainwash vulnerable young people and draw them into extremist networks.

The Vatican has yet to confirm he will attend the event, but said the visit is “under consideration”.

Professor of religion and politics at St Andrews Mario Aguilar invited the Pope to take part in raising awareness of the charter against extremism.

He has met him several times and wrote his biography in 2014.

He said: “My understanding is that Pope Francis is interested and has put the event on his agenda of activities. I have had an indication his visit is being considered.”

A visit by the Pople, however brief, would be a huge coup for Scotland’s 850,000 Catholics.

But it would not be anything like the elaborate trip made by Pope Benedict in 2010.

Pope Francis could fly in to Leuchars then return to Rome on the same day. Aguilar stressed that he would be coming in a private capacity, to attend an academic event. “It will not be a pastoral visit.”    DailyRecord

SDA leaders pledging to fight against a growing “perversion of religion” worldwide by those who use the language of faith to justify violence and terrorism.

Ganoune Diop giving a presentation at the Moscow conference. Images by ESD PARL

November 9, 2015 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Bettina Krause

Two senior Seventh-day Adventist leaders joined participants of a Russian government-organized conference on religious freedom in pledging to fight against a growing “perversion of religion” worldwide by those who use the language of faith to justify violence and terrorism.

Delegates attending the Third International Forum on Religion and Peace at Moscow’s President Hotel.

The Third International Forum on Religion and Peace, a rare gathering of leaders from across Russia’s religious and political spectrum, met Oct. 29 in the Great Hall of Moscow’s President Hotel and included scholars, public officials, and religious leaders representing the Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic communities.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church was represented by Ganoune Diop, director of the public affairs and religious liberty department for the world church, and Oleg Goncharov, director of the public affairs and religious liberty department in the church’s Euro-Asia Division.

In his address to the assembly, Diop focused on the foundational place of religious freedom within the pantheon of human rights. He emphasized that it is a God-given right not subject to political agendas, and he urged all those present to work together to preserve and extend this “first freedom.”

On the day before the forum, Diop and Goncharov visited the State Duma, Russia’s national parliament, to meet various public officials responsible for church-state relations in the country. They also met with Alexander Kudryavtsev, who heads one of Russia’s most active public organizations focused on religious liberty, the Russian Association for the Protection of Religious Freedoms.

Diop, left, and Goncharov, second left, listening to a delegate speak at the forum.

At the conclusion of the forum, participants adopted a resolution expressing deep concern about rising religious extremism. They also urged greater action on the part of the international community in stemming the continued destruction of Christian communities in the Middle East and Africa, and they expressed solidarity with all those suffering persecution for their faith.

The event was jointly organized by Russia’s Presidential Council for Cooperation with Religious Organizations, and Moscow’s Department of National Policy, Inter-Regional Relations, and Tourism. It was supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, along with other religious and public leaders.

Pastor Franklin Graham, son of well-known evangelist Billy Graham, attended the forum, along with Metropolitan Hilarion, director of the department for external church relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Allahshukur Pashazade, chair of the Religious Council of the Caucasus.

Interamerica