PARTESS-COM seeks to enhance the security of religious communities by providing community leaders with an easy-to-use knowledge hub in the form of an app about the securitisation of their buildings and venues. Leveraging the findings of the predecessor project, PARTES, the app will include information about security concepts, state-of-the-art practices, the latest scientific and technical achievements and with full consideration of contextual specificities, for communities to access and consider for their venue. The final impacts the project aims to achieve is making religious community members and everyday citizens aware of security threats and to elevate the feeling of security and safety in places in worship, schools and community gatherings.
PARTESS-COM
The trend in recent years of attacks and hate crimes targeting places of worship in Europe and world-wide is concerning. Mosques and synagogues are particularly affected, yet Christian places of worship have also been targeted. The threat landscape has become even more complex with the increasing number of online hate crimes and cyber-attacks, sometimes combined with offline campaigns. These attacks are only the symptom of a broader violent extremist phenomenon on the rise in Europe, fuelled by toxic extremist rhetoric, lack of knowledge about other religions and cultures, and insufficient involvement of mainstream society in extremism prevention. Although authorities provide some protection and security support, existing measures must be strengthened and improved. The phenomenon must be addressed in a more complex way that goes beyond architectural security and police presence.
PATRES laid the following foundations
- Map the specific threat landscape of involved religious communities (including cyber threats)
- Assess and derive lessons learned on vulnerabilities and existing security concepts of involved religious communities and exchange best practices on protective measures Europe-wide
- Establish cooperation and communication structures and channels between religious communities and local authorities
- Develop proactive and preventive security measures
- Carry out trainings and workshops with religious and local authorities
- Raise awareness among the wider population about the threat and strategies of extremist organisations targeting places of worship, and involve them in prevention strategies
The project will make a significant contribution to the improvement of the overall protection of public spaces through the creation of an app and enhancement of places of worship’s preventive and security concepts. This will be achieved by taking the threat landscape, the online dimension and pre-attack or preventive phases and measures into account, as well as by newly established communication structures with authorities.
PARTESS-COM shall
- improve cooperation between all relevant stakeholders – through the creation of cooperation and communication structures and channels between religious communities and local authorities,
- develop trainings and guidance materials through state-of-the-art training methods involving online and offline approaches, and organise awareness raising campaigns,
- help to better assess security threats through state-of-the-art analysis and data-driven threat landscape analysis, and
- help to better plan protective measures and enhance physical protection through the development of proactive and preventive security measures
Violence Prevention Network gGmbH
International Department
Alt-Reinickendorf 25
13407 Berlin
