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ISLAMABAD - The recently formed first-ever National Counter Violent Extremism Policy (NCVEP) 2021 seeks that all religious worship places nationwide should be regulated by local administration through a legislative framework to end violent extremism in the country.
The policy suggests a number of kinetic and non-kinetic measures to tackle the issue of violent extremism that has gripped the country for the past many decades. It stresses the need to establish CVE (counter violent extremism) centres of excellence at federal and provincial levels besides formation of dedicated CVE units in Special Branch and counter terrorism departments (CTDs) of provincial and federal police. It further says that the monitoring of learning institutions and worship places must be done through these units.
It proposes that these CVE units shall have the capacity to identify “delinquent behaviour” of any person within a community and to investigate, and prosecute cases of violent extremism either under Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 or through a new CVE law.
The policy draft, exclusively available with The Nation, is based on ‘5 R(s)’ or targets — revisit, reach out, reduce, reinforce and reintegrate — to end violent extremism in the country. Besides a national level effort, a huge amount of public funding would be required to implement the policy and this has yet to be seen how Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government responds over this key document.
The issue of violent extremism in the country has been in the debate since last year’s violent protests of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) that had killed and injured many police officials, and recent lynching of a Sri Lankan national in Sialkot on blasphemy charges.
The policy prepared by National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) consists of two parts, first part refers to the policy itself and the second has been named as “Implementation and Institutionalization of National Counter Violent Extremism Policy 2021.” On December 14 last year, NACTA had submitted the policy draft with the Ministry of Interior and the same has now been circulated among provinces and various ministries for their input before being sent to Prime Minister Imran Khan for final approval.
The policy formulation and implementation refer to “proactive strategic actions to identify, pre-empt, prevent, disrupt, and prosecute violent extremists, and their supporters for their deigns and plans to entice, influence, radicalize, recruit, and mobilize various individuals and groups of people to violent extremism,” reads the draft.
The CVE policy that has been formulated as part of the revised National Action Plan (NAP) on counterterrorism strategy shall run as “a core theme in relevant public policies of the state” to achieve its objectives. The objectives include identification of violent extremism trends and responses, promotion of pluralistic values of peace, tolerance and diversity in the society, progressive use of social and traditional media to prevent violent extremism, public engagement, and protection of vulnerable communities against risks of violent extremism.
The first target “revisit” urges that a national narrative shall be prepared on CVE policy issues and syllabi in all learning institutes shall be revisited from CVE perspective. Religious leaders/imams/khateebs/priests of all faiths shall be responsible for promotion of peace and harmony in spirit of Paigham-e-Pakistan document and national narrative on CVE.
Second target of policy is “reaching out” the public with national narrative of hope and positivity through media engagement including print, electronic and social media. It says that cyber space shall be monitored and regulated to prevent and counter violent extremism and “Online Ethical Behavioral Code” shall be developed in consultation with federal and provincial stakeholders.
The next target “reduce” is meant to reducing violent extremism through public engagement with focus on youth and women’s participation in activities aimed at preventing and countering violent extremism from national to local levels. The target seeks to support the protection of rights of vulnerable communities (women, minorities, people with special needs, elderly, children, and transgenders) by making them priority in policies and practices of each institution.
The fourth target is “reinforcing” the message of CVE policy through promotion of creative arts and cultural activities supporting social values of peace, tolerance, and harmony in the society.
The policy declares its fifth part (“reintegrate”) as most challenging and divides it further into ‘de-radicalization, rehabilitation and reconciliation.’ For de-radicalization, it emphasizes for capacity building of prison staff for CVE and asks to revisit national de-radicalization and emancipation programmes and national de-deradicalization facilities and to re-design the same in a post-insurgency perspective. It seeks that the Parliament shall constitute a national reconciliation commission to engage the relevant stakeholders for implementation of a legitimate framework of reconciliation, especially in those areas where victims of violent extremism and their perpetrators are from the same community or locality.
The second part “Implementation and Institutionalization of CVE Policy” comprises of action plan, and activities. It identifies expected support partners, departments and ministries to implement each target of the policy.
For effective implementation, the policy says that CVE centres of excellence should be established in NACTA and provinces through an act of Parliament with the mandate of “monitoring, evaluation, research, coordination of CVE action plans and issuance of directions on the subject of CVE.”
The draft says that CVE legal regime should be streamlined for its uniform enforcement in the country. It proposes for establishing CVE units in learning institutions, relevant ministries, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and police organizations for monitoring and reporting and in CTDs for prosecution of kinetic actions. It urges the need that implementation of kinetic and non-kinetic CVE measures should be monitored and evaluated.
The policy concludes that unpredictable and evolving spectrum of violent extremism threats make it a challenge to prevent and counter these through kinetic measures only. It needs a strong political support from all segments of society for effective implementation of this policy, it adds.