National Press Club, Washington, DC – June 9 th, 2016
Moderator
Matteo Garavoglia, Brookings Institution
A dual German and Italian citizen, Matteo Garavoglia is the Italy Program Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States and Europe. His research focuses on the European Union’s common foreign and security policy. In particular, he is interested in humanitarian, development, democratization, election observation, human rights, migration and refugees policies. Additionally, he covers issues pertaining to Italian politics and U.S.-Italy relations. He is also research associate at the University of Oxford’s Centre for International Studies and serves as adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
Panelists
Michael Whine, Community Security Trust / ECRI
Michael Whine is the Government and International Affairs Director at the Community Security Trust, and the UK member of ECRI, the Council of Europe Commission against Racism and Intolerance. He has represented the UK at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) and its National Point of Contact on Hate Crime meetings since 2008. He is a member of the Hate Crime Independent Advisors Group at the Ministry of Justice, and between 2010 and 2012 he acted as Lay Advisor to the Counter Terrorism Division of the Crown Prosecution Service. In 2013 was appointed to the Hate Crime Scrutiny and Involvement Panel of the London Crown Prosecution Service, which scrutinizes and evaluates hate crime prosecutions. He is the author of over twenty works in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and books, with a focus on religious extremism and terrorism, extremists’ use of the internet, cyberhate, and political and diplomatic action against antisemitism.
Lorenzo Vidino, Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, George Washington University
Dr. Lorenzo Vidino is the Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber & Homeland Security. An expert on Islamism in Europe and North America, his research over the past 15 years has focused on the mobilization dynamics of jihadist networks in the West; governmental counter-radicalization policies; and the activities of Muslim Brotherhood-inspired organizations in the West. A native of Italy who holds American citizenship, Dr. Vidino earned a law degree from the University of Milan Law School and a doctorate in international relations from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He has held positions at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the RAND Corporation, and the Center for Security Studies (ETH Zurich).
Irfan Saeed, Director, Countering Violent Extremism, U.S. Department of State
