Toowoomba religious leaders set to tackle terrorism

FIVE Toowoomba religious leaders, and a local police officer, will fly to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday to attend a conference about the prevention of extremism.

COUNTERING EXTREMISM: Heading to Malaysia are (from left) Meiling Chow, Muhammed Haniff and Kate Venables. Picture: Nev Madsen

FIVE Toowoomba religious leaders, and a local police officer, will fly to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday to attend a conference about religious values and the prevention of violent extremism.

CatholicCare Toowoomba director Kate Venables will be one of the Toowoomba delegates, put together by Pure Land Learning College, attending the conference organised by the International Islamic University Malaysia.

Ms Venables said she believed Toowoomba did peace and harmony really well and this was an opportunity to share what the city did with the rest of the world.

"There will be opportunities to listen to stories from other places that are also doing it really well, so we can build off what they do," she said.

"There will also be opportunities to hear of situations where there has been violence and extremism and find out what those places did.

"It's about being aware and being in that forewarned space is really important."

Other delegates include Downs and Toowoomba Churches Together chair John Agnew, University of Southern Queensland chaplain Dr Stephen Wanyonyi, Pure Land's Muhammed Haniff and Meiling Chow and Senior Sergeant Debbie Haworth from the Queensland Police Service.

Originally published as Toowoomba religious leaders set to tackle terrorism