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U.K. PM David Cameron Announces Plan to Counter Islamic Extremism

Toms Norde, Valsts kanceleja [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Toms Norde, Valsts kanceleja [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
David Cameron announced one phase of the Islamic extremism plan which includes allowing parents to cancel their children’s passports if they think they may be a flight risk.

On Monday, July 20, the U.K. Prime Minister, David Cameron, delivered a speech about extremism to a school in Birmingham. He states that Islam is a peaceful religion, however he adds that there is an undeniable link between the religion and the ISIS radicalization terrorizing the world today. Though he banned Robert Spencer in 2013 for stating the same thing, he says that Islam has a violent, war-obsessed doctrine against those who don’t believe. He went on to say that the ISIS movement taking place in Iraq and Syria isn’t “a pioneering movement,” but a “vicious, brutal and fundamentally abhorrent existence”.

Britons Joining the ISIS Movement Daily

Only a month ago, a 17 year old Brit made his way to Iraq in secret, later taking part in a suicide bombing attack. In addition, three school girls took a plane to Turkey and joined ISIS in Syria. They told their parents they were going to the mall. According to estimates by authorities, around 700 Brits have joined in the Middle East. Around 350 or more have returned, which poses a huge threat to security in Britain. Since these reports were released, government officials have been working to create a 5-year counter-extremism plan. The plan is set to be revealed in the fall of this year.


Cameron announced one phase of the plans, which would allow parents to cancel their children’s passports if they think they may be a flight risk. This is meant to ensure that students, teens and others who attempt to join the fight in the Middle East, or have succeeded, will be unable to fly to or from either location. In addition, the British government is working to have higher access to online surveillance, though they have been able to collect data from phone calls and other lines of communication. In the past, such as 2013, Cameron called for strategies to battle home-based extremism. In 2013, two Islamic fighters murdered a British soldier in London.

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