Extremists want to destroy the fabric that binds people together – but religious diversity brings people together, reminding them that they have more in common than that which keeps them apart.

Trump promises politics in its naked form: the seizure of power for his clan, and be damned with all the rest. As the centre ground collapses, we must not cling to it. 

Recognising there are political elements to any campaign of militant violence makes it less ‘terrifying’ for society and is crucial in developing measures to constrain it. 

In the voluminous responses to the long-awaited US Senate committee report on torture by the CIA, the essence of what must follow—prosecutions, not pardons—has been buried.

Last week the US president, Barack Obama, visited Saudi Arabia. Fighting extremism, the crisis in Syria, and Iran's nuclear programme would all have been live concerns. Human rights, however, was not.

openSecurity was inspired by a 2005 conference in Madrid on the anniversary of the Atocha station bombings, marked by consensus that 'counter-terrorism' measures had to be consistent with human rights and the rule of law. The UK was hardly represented at the event—and its performance since resembles a state whose human-rights record is ill-starred: Turkey.

At the end of his trial, the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik was deemed sufficiently sane to be imprisoned. But the process and outcome, says Thomas Hylland Eriksen, open another question: will Norway now use the opportunity to deal with its inner demons, namely the sources of Breivik's hatred of a culturally diverse new country?

The coordinated bomb-attacks on London’s transport network on 7 July 2005 (“7/7”) left dozens dead and hundreds wounded, and marked the lives of millions in the city and beyond. The political, intellectual and security issues raised by the event were extensively discussed on openDemocracy in the ensuing months. A retrospect of unforgettable days, by David Hayes.(This article was first published on 7 July 2010)

In Maxim Kantor’s opinion, the 39 deaths in the Moscow metro bombings on 29 March are victims of that fight between bulldogs under the carpet, as Churchill described Russian politics. The victims are always the poor, never the bulldogs. And guess who gains by the tragedy?

The Madrid train-bombings on 11 March 2004 provoked a dignified outpouring of collective grief. But the moment was soon reclaimed by Spain’s enduring political warfare over the national past, says Guy Hedgecoe.

What's in store for Pakistan? Anatol Lieven forecasts. Listen now