Us State Department Chooses April 6th Movement To Take Part In Anti-Extremism Conference

Us State Department Chooses April 6th Movement To Take Part In Anti-Extremism Conference

The US State Department said the April 6th Movement will take part in an international conference in New York on December 3-5. The conference is organized by the US State Department in cooperation with a number of its allies in the private sector under the title: The Alliance of Youth Movements.

The US department described the Egyptian movement as the ‘largest’ youth movement in Egypt and said that its support to such movements resulted in disputes with some regimes.

Sean McCormack of the US Department of State said: “The conference aims to help youth combat extremism, using modern technology to help various groups come together to achieve that goal through facebook and blogs.”

US Assistant Secretary of State James Glassman said the April 6th, among 17 international organizations on the Internet, would take part in the conference that would be held at Colombia University in New York. He described the movement as Egypt’s largest pro-democracy youth group.

“The group had staged a countrywide protest in April that led to some crackdowns by the government and arrests and even deaths. Some of its leaders were tortured and severely beaten,” he added.

In reply to a question that Egypt would not appreciate the role played by the US State of Department to create such alliance between youth movements that may be seen as a threat, Glassman said: “We support movements that defend democracy in the world and this may put us in dispute with some governments.”

“Now we have to work with those governments. And let me also just say, there’s a difference on an operational level between what we do in public diplomacy and what is often done in official diplomacy. We are communicating and engaging at the level of the public, not at the level of officials. So you know, it certainly is possible that some of these governments will not be all that happy but that’s what we do in public diplomacy.”

With regard to concerns that those movements may turn to violence, Glassman said “We have chosen these organizations specifically because they have a record of nonviolence.”

The conference is held in cooperation with Facebook, Google, MTV, AT&T and Howcast. It covers activities of 360 Media and it is participated by movements from Africa, Britain, the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba.

The conference took its idea from a Colombian movement that managed to gather 11 million people from 190 cities around the world in a march against the Colombian violent extremist organization that has been around since 19