Anti-radicalisation programme trialled on Teesside could be used on 'much wider scale'

The so-called Islamic State uses the internet and social media to try to attract people to its cause Credit: ITV News Tyne Tees

By Kris Jepson

Exclusive: The former independent terrorism legislation reviewer, Lord Carlile, has told ITV News Tyne Tees he thinks an anti-radicalisation programme being run on Teesside should be rolled out across the UK to help in the fight against radicalisation.

The workshop, run by Middlesbrough-born Amjid Khazir will train teachers from 10 schools in Teesside to deal with the threat of radicalisation.

Lord Carlile said of the the Media Cultured "community cohesion" training programme: "I think the whole country has a lot to learn about what has been pioneered on Teesside. It inspired me because it has original thinking behind it. I witnessed it being used with young people and I saw that they were inspired by it too."

The programme concentrates on controversial issues like racism, extremism and Islamophobia and empowers the young people to make their own considered arguments that they could use if they are ever targeted by extremists who hope to radicalise them.

Watch @krisjepson's exclusive report here:

Radicalisation - Amjid's story

Amjid Khazir is a Middlesbrough-born Muslim. His uncle died of a heart attack in 2011 a month after he'd been subjected to a racially motivated attack in his taxi.

That incident could have made Amjid vulnerable to radicalisation by extremists. He says extremists, like the so-called Islamic State, try to use controversial issues like racism to divide communities and promote their own propaganda. Instead, the incident prompted Amjid to do more community work with the aim of promoting social cohesion, equality and integration.

He said: "Finding ways to tackle misinformaton and misrepresentation are crucial to giving young people the confidence they need to overcome the ideology and the narrative of extremists, so if they are in a vulnerable position ever, in a situation where someone is trying to tell them that we are so different and to dehumanise a person from a different belief system, I think after today's activity they will, at the very least, think twice."

You can watch the whole of tonight's report on the initiative here.