Interviews
Interview
24 February 2016
Muslims don’t need protection, they need societal debates
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about the growing number of young people he encounters in schools, who are unable to harmonise their religious convictions with fundamental laws. Mansour expresses that it is essential to understand their individual motives to address the roots of the problem....
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Interview
01 February 2016
Ahmad Mansour: Psychologist
In this interview, EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour discusses his personal process of becoming radicalised, as well as the process of deradicalisation that followed. He talks about controversial content within Islamic beliefs and the necessity of offering alternative interpretations to the Muslim community....
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Interview
01 February 2016
On the Islamic State, with Magnus Norell
FED Senior Fellow Magnus Norell is interviewed on the Swedish podcast Acast on issues concerning the Middle East, the emergence of the terrorist organization Islamic State and how they have grown to be so strong....
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Interview
01 February 2016
The Islamic State, with Magnus Norell
EFD Senior Fellow Magnus Norell is interviewed by Acast on the Middle East and the rise of terrorist groups such as the so-called Islamic State....
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Interview
31 January 2016
The big questions: Do we need a British Islam
EFD Fellow Tehmina Kazi was interviewed on BBC One, to address the unique challenges of citizenship, identity, and belonging in a globalized world....
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Interview
24 January 2016
Ex-Islamist: “Salafists are the better social workers”
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about radical interpretations of Islam and criticises the lack of their critical examination within the Muslim community....
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Interview
18 January 2016
5 measures for the integration of young Muslims
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about concrete measures for the integration of young Muslims into mainstream society. He elaborates on five distinct steps that should be undertaken by politicians and civil society....
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Interview
12 January 2016
Bombs alone don’t help
In this interview, EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour talks about the dangers of a polarised society in the light of increasing radicalisation and why he thinks democracy in Germany is under threat....
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Interview
09 January 2016
What remains is the macho posture
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour comments on the New Year’s Eve attacks on women in the German city of Cologne. Analysing the occurrences from a psychological perspective, Mansour detects deficiencies related to gender perception as one of the underlying causes for the events....
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Interview
07 January 2016
Between extremes
In this interview, EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour talks about his personal experience with regards to the process of deradicalisation and why it is so important to create counter-narratives for young people who are at risk of becoming radicalised....
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Interview
16 December 2015
The personal guest – Ahmad Mansour, out of the undertow of fundamentalism
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about his personal background, including his experiences with Islamism and explains how he managed to break-out from its undertow....
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Interview
15 December 2015
Islamists are racists!
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about the segregation of the sexes in certain understandings of Islam and why it is racist to label Islamism as a peripheral matter while recognising right-wing extremism as a problem within mainstream society....
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Interview
14 December 2015
The task of a century
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about the attacks in Paris on November 13th and why the task of winning back radicalised youth is a task for society as a whole....
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Interview
11 December 2015
If we lose them it will get uncomfortable here
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about the process of radicalisation among young people and the offers they receive from Islamist groups who radicalise them....
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Interview
07 December 2015
Islamism conveys the feeling of belonging to an elite
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about the expected verdict against two men from Wolfsburg (Germany), who were arrested following their return from fighting for the Islamic State....
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Interview
06 December 2015
Those who wait until Islamism turns into violence have already lost
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about Islamism and explains why the definition of this term has to be extended to include not only those who are actively committing violence, but those whose religious understanding does not comply with the fundamental values of the societies in which they live....
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Interview
04 December 2015
Turkey refuses to apologise and Putin’s options are limited
EFD Senior Policy Advisor Dr Demir Murat Seyrek is interviewed live on Al Jazeera on Turkey-Russia crisis on downed warplane....
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Interview
29 November 2015
A monster has emerged among us
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about his projects Heroes and Hayat. He explains how it is important to reach every single young, radicalised person and how this issue is approached within these projects....
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Interview
29 November 2015
We have to take responsibility for this monster
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed about the radicalisation of young people in Europe and why these individuals are willing to give up the freedom that Western societies provide them....
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Interview
17 November 2015
Radicalisation is a process that makes happy
Ahmad Mansour is interviewed in Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung. He explains how the early stages of radicalisation convey positive feelings of structure and belonging to young people, while simultaneously evoking negative feelings towards newly built enemy stereotypes....
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Interview
16 November 2015
We must not be intimidated
Ahmad Mansour is interviewed in the Swiss 20 Minuten. He comments on the terrorist attacks in Paris on 13th November 2015 and explains that many proponents of radical Islamism are born and raised within European societies but reject European core values such as democracy, human rights and diversity....
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Interview
14 November 2015
Saving “Generation Allah”
Ahmad Mansour is interviewed in the Austrian Wiener Zeitung. According to Ahmad,interpreting religion from the perspective of exclusivity is often the first step to increasingly move away from the core values of democracy. This process is at the origins of the Islamic radicalisation of young people....
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Interview
17 October 2015
Generation Allah – A wake-up call
Ahmad Mansour is interview by German radio station rbb. He explains how the radicalisation of young people is a problem that is worsening and affecting the educational systems as there remains a lack of tangible policy proposals....
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Interview
16 October 2015
EU-Turkey relations carry a strategic significance
According to EFD Senior Policy Advisor Dr. Demir Murat Seyrek, the refugee crisis has demonstrated that the meaning of EU-Turkey relations goes beyond the discussions regarding Turkey’s full admission to the European Union. Turkey cannot ignore the EU and the EU cannot ignore Turkey; they are necessary to one another....
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Article, Interview
15 October 2015
Early election in Turkey most likely means new coalition government – analyst
EFD Senior Policy Adviser, Dr Demir Murat Seyrek, is interviewed by Azerbaijan's Trend News Agency on the upcoming 1 November elections in Turkey. In the interview, Dr Seyrek predicts that Turkey's election will likely result in the creation of a grand new coalition government between the currently governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People's Party (CHP)....
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Interview
22 June 2015
Mr Mansour, IS the terror group is planning to attack Switzerland?
Ahmad Mansour is interviewed in Switzerland’s Aargauer Zeitung on the topic of radicalisation among young Muslims. Ahmad stresses the danger of speaking about radicalisation exclusively in connection with violent jihadists; he states that the topic has to be understood as a broader tendency among young Muslims in “Generation Allah.”...
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Interview
22 June 2015
Muslim Forum: Islam and German reality
Ahmad Mansour is interviewed in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about the newly founded “Muslim Forum Germany” (“Muslimisches Forum Deutschland”),which aims to give a voice to humanistically oriented Muslims....
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Interview
19 June 2015
Germany’s “Generation Allah”: why young Muslims are becoming radicalised
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed on German news portal web.de on the topic of radicalisation among young Muslims in Germany. He describes tendencies in the current generation of young people - which he refers to as "Generation Allah" - where a general increase in religiousness can be observed....
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Interview
Interview
08 June 2015
We speak far too infrequently about political topics
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour is interviewed in Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel newspaper on rising anti-Semitism a...
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Interview
22 May 2015
ISIS destroys our heritage. Our culture is ignorance for them.
In an interview with Italian newspaper Giornale di Sicilia, EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo comments on the attack on the Syrian city of Palmyra by the militant group Islamic State. She highlights that, despite the general disapproval of IS, many Islamic groups would be opposed to Western intervention....
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Interview
03 May 2015
“Islamists often plan attacks together with family members”
Following a foiled terror attack in the German town of Oberursel, EFD Programme Director is interviewed in Die Welt newspaper on the radicalisation process and the urgent requirement for greater State level support in the prevention work....
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Interview
23 April 2015
Psychologist on Islamism
Following a symposium at the Austrian Ministry of Justice on preventing Islamism in state prisons, EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour appears on Austrian national news to discuss the radicalisation process, and what needs be done both in the Muslim community and in mainstream society to safeguard young people from the violent ideology....
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Interview
13 April 2015
Islam does not justify the massacre or the destruction
In an interview with Italian newspaper Il Giornale di Sicilia, EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo highlights the absence of Islamic religious authorities as the major cause of misinterpretation of the Koran....
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Interview
08 April 2015
The youngsters who are waging Jihad are just the tip of the iceberg
EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour states that the fact that youth from all social classes are vulnerable to radicalisation, and that the propaganda proliferated by ISIS is sophisticated and tailored to the interests and concerns of young people....
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Interview
26 March 2015
ISIS and Foreign Fighters
EFD Senior Policy Advisor Lorenzo Vidino elaborates on the wave of violent radicalisation among European youth. He identifies the cause of this phenomenon as an identity issue rather than economic and social hardship. He analyses the consequences of radicalisation, as well as the solutions implemented by the United Kingdom since the 2005 attacks....
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Interview
22 March 2015
Interview with EFD’s Valentina Colombo on the Islamic State
In an interview with Commodities Trading, an Italian media outlet focusing on international business and finance issues, EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo explains what the so-called Islamic State (IS) is and how it is able maintain its power base in the Middle East....
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