Governance, Technology and Trust in the Age of AI: The Role of Parliaments and Parliamentary Diplomacy in Countering Online Terrorist Narratives

Distinguished delegates, excellencies, dear friends, good morning and welcome to this side event organized by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, together with the senior department in the United Nations, which are friends beyond partnership and collaboration on a very important topics. Governance, technology, and trust in the age of artificial intelligence. The role of parliaments and parliamentary parliamentary diplomacy encountering online terrorist narrative. We have seen how much technology, artificial intelligence, is being exploited by terrorist extremist organization in these days throughout the planet in all languages exploiting all religions and we have seen also in particular how youth young people are influenced by the way that artificial intelligence and terrorist group utilize socials to on this fertile ground. Said so, the time is limited, so I would like to welcome our senior speakers and colleagues, as well as the permanent missions which have accepted our invitations, among them Tunisia, Malta, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Egypt, and United Arab Emirates, all of them with the senior expert on, especially on terrorism and cybersecurity and so on. Said so, because we have a rich agenda, please allow me to welcome here next to me, His Excellency Alexander Zuev, the Acting Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism, the head of UNOCT. Ms. Natalia German, Assistant Secretary General and Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate of the Security Council, and our distinguished delegates and colleagues from other. Among them, I want to say hi to our dear friend, His Excellency Ambassador Al-Madani, who is the chairman of our study center in San Marino. Said so, I have the pleasure to give the floor to His Excellency Ambassador Zouhri.

Thank you very much, Honorable Julio Centemero, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, dear Assistant Secretary General Natalia German, Executive Director of CETA, Excellencies, Honorable Parliamentarians, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to open this side event on the margins of the very important 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. Let me first of all thank the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean and its Center for Global Studies for convening this discussion. Digital platforms, algorithmic systems, and artificial intelligence we still call it this way, not super intelligence, have changed how terrorist groups spread propaganda and exploit grievances for incitement and recruitment. Terrorist narratives now circulate across different web-based platforms on which disinformation, hate speech, and identity-based polarization can be adapted to local contexts. and directed as especially vulnerable audiences with considerable precision. And we documented that in certain cases, it's not just addressing young people, but even children starting from 10 years old. I mean, you know, and we had a very good study in South Asia on this, on recruitment through internet platforms. One dimension of this trend is especially worrying. As I said, adolescents and children are increasingly exposed to violent extremism content through social media, gaming environments, and encrypted messaging applications. The evidence suggests that the age at which online radicalization to terrorism begins is decreasing. Prevention must therefore give greater weight to child protection, digital literacy, early detection, and coordinated safeguards involving families, schools, public institutions, and technology providers. Terrorist groups are particularly insidious and pernicious. They rarely recruit through ideology alone. They exploit existing breakdowns in social and institutional trust. Our response must be multifaceted and integrate legal, institutional, educational, and technological measures that strengthen democratic resilience and information integrity in full respect of human rights and the rule of law. Of course, parliaments are central to these efforts. Through their legislative function, they can develop balanced frameworks addressing online incitement to violence, terrorist propaganda and recruitment, terrorist propaganda and probably it's internet intrusion, I mean, you know, from unfriendly forces, and recruitment and the risk associated with emerging technologies while upholding human rights and fundamental freedoms. Through their oversight function, parliaments can determine whether national prevention strategies are effective, proportionate, accountable, and adapted to new technological realities. Through their representative function, parliamentarians can shape responsible public discourse and reinforce trust between institutions and citizens in fragmented information environment. Thus, parliamentary diplomacy complements intergovernmental efforts, I mean our efforts, including my office and Natalia's office. Interparliamentary dialogue allows legislative experience to be exchanged and common principles to be identified. I take this opportunity to recognize once again the leading role of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean as President of the Coordination Mechanism for Parliamentary Assemblies on Counterterrorism and its contribution to advancing parliamentary engagement in this space. I would like also to thank PAM for its very close collaboration with my Office of Counterterrorism. Ladies and gentlemen, 25 years ago, since 9/11 terrorist attack, significant progress has been still achieved. Member states have worked to align their efforts and strengthen their cooperation, guided by shared international obligations, Security Council requirements, and of course, the global counterterrorism strategy. As you know, we just recently, early July, approved already ninth edition of this global counterterrorism strategy at the General Assembly, and it was a big success of international community, in my personal view. Yet the threat continues to evolve and technological change continues to outspace legislative and policy process. No member state, no parliament, no organization can address this challenge alone. UNOCT will continue supporting Member States and their parliaments through capacity building, policy dialogue and practical cooperation, working closely with PAM and other close partners such as CTED. And as you know, we have a dedicated capacity in my office in Doha, Qatar. We have a group of colleagues working specifically with parliaments on the issues of counterterrorism. Well, I would like to thank all speakers and participants and wish you a productive exchange. Very unfortunately, this week is very busy, as you may imagine, and I have many bilaterals and I have also to attend some meetings of the Secretary General Gutierrez, I mean, you know, with heads of states and all this. So I will definitely listen for a few statements, but then I have to leave.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I wish to thank Ambassador Zuo for his words. You can count on PAM all the time, and also the office in counterterrorism in Doha. We have excellent relations with them. Now, before giving the floor to Her Excellency German, let me just say hi and welcome a person who is following us from Bamako. He is His Excellency the President of the Parliament of the High Council of Mali, His Excellency Mamadou Satigu Diakite, who greet you all, and I have the pleasure to do it on his behalf. Said so, I have the pleasure to give the floor to Her Excellency, Natalia German.

Your Excellency, Sergio Piazzi, Honorable Giulio Centemero, Dear Under-Secretary-General Alexander Zuyev, Your Excellencies, Members of Parliament, dear colleagues, dear friends, I wish first and foremost to thank the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean and its Center for Global Studies for organizing today's event. and also take this opportunity to highlight the excellent and long-standing partnership that exists between Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean. We meet today as the global terrorism landscape continues to evolve in both complexity and in consequence. Terrorist groups are using new technologies not only for propaganda and recruitment, but also for attack planning, intelligence gathering, and financing. Artificial intelligence, in particular, has the potential to exacerbate the risks of online harms and offline damages. Evidence indicates that terrorist groups are using AI-driven tools to generate and propagate terrorist messaging, and training manuals for recruitment and for operational purposes. And this includes tailored messaging and increased targeting of children and youth through various social and gaming platforms. And more broadly, recent developments demonstrate that AI is increasingly embedded across the full life cycle of security technologies, from enabling more autonomous and coordinated unmanned aircraft systems to strengthening biometric management, while also creating new challenges such as deep fakes, spoofing, and synthetic identities. At the same time, the beneficial uses of the same technologies, when used responsibly and in a manner consistent with international law, should never be ignored. As AI capabilities advance, Effective governance must ensure meaningful human oversight, transparency, and robust safeguards to maintain public trust and protect fundamental rights. Recognizing these developments, the Security Council of the United Nations has highlighted the need for Member States to prevent terrorists from exploiting ICT and other new technologies. It has also called for strengthening cooperation with the private sector, civil society and academia to develop effective responses, including technological solutions. This month, the Security Council adopted a presidential statement commemorating the September 11 attacks. It reinforced deep concerns over the increased use of new technologies for terrorist purposes. The Security Council further emphasized the need for Member States to act together to prevent and counter such misuse. Under the guidance of the Counter-Terrorism Committee, CTED supports Member States in implementing Security Council counter-terrorism resolutions by assessing their implementation, identifying emerging trends and developments, and facilitating technical assistance. As part of this work, CTITF integrates emerging technologies into its ongoing dialogue with all member states to better understand needs, challenges, and priorities. Countering modern threats requires collective efforts to build greater awareness of the implications of the misuse of technologies while strengthening prevention-focused responses and increasing national, regional, and international cooperation. And it is within this broader ecosystem that parliaments play a very indispensable role. Parliamentarians help ensure that national legal frameworks remain responsive to evolving threats while preserving democratic accountability, the rule of law, and fundamental rights, including freedom of expression. This role is particularly important when addressing terrorist and violent extremist content and other forms of harmful online activity. Parliamentarians can guide the development of effective national and regional strategies for addressing risks associated with emerging technologies while providing the oversight necessary to ensure that such measures are proportionate and subject to appropriate safeguards. In an area evolving as rapidly as technology, no single institution or state possesses all the expertise needed to respond effectively. In this regard, I wish to commend the valuable role of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean as a center of excellence for regional parliamentary diplomacy and your strong lead for continued interparliamentary cooperation. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to join Honorable Sergio Piazzi and USG Alexander Zuev in thanking all of you for participating today in this very timely and important event. I look forward for our continued engagement in ensuring that new technologies are used first and foremost responsibly. Our common challenge is to create conditions where the benefits of technology are harness to strengthen rather than undermine international peace and security. Thank you.

Thank you, honorable Gehrman. Thank you. You're always clear to the point and help us to address, to better prepare PAM. And now we have 41 member states.

Impressive.

How to deal with this issue in a coherent manner and to be fast because reality go faster than debates. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Now I have the pleasure to give the floor to Honorable Giulio Centemero from Italy, who is the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean. Giulio, please.

Thank you. Thank you for giving me the floor. Excellencies and esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, on the behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, it is my pleasure to welcome you at this special event. Today, we will examine how technologies, and especially new technologies, are in the process of reshaping both the evolution of the threat posed by terrorist narratives and the role of national governments and parliaments in particular in using AI and new technologies to shape policies and support decision making processes. I'd like to extend my deepest gratitude to His Excellency, Ambassador Alexander Zuev. I hope I said correctly the name, acting under Secretary General for Counterterrorism and His Excellency, Eric Salency, sorry, Madonna, Natalia German, the enemy, Assistant Secretary General and Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorist Committee Executive Directorate for their presence. This is a clear statement that with the invaluable support of its Center for Global Study, CGS, and I wish to thank His Excellency Ambassador Professor Almadani, the Chairman of our Center for Global Study, OPAM can continue to serve as a point of reference, as a landmark for the international community for its efforts to fight terrorism. In this regard, I would also like to note that to this day, the Assembly holds the chairmanship of the UN Coordination Mechanism for Parliamentary Assemblies on Counterterrorism, so a very important role. that we should not underestimate. We hope that the Mechanism's work can continue in the coming years because it has the advantage of bringing together parliamentary delegates from around the world to discuss such crucial issues and gain a common understanding of the terrorist threat that, as we all know, does not have any geographical boundaries. And in this regard, allow me to take a moment to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the tragic terrorist attack of 11 September 2001, which shocked everybody. The Assembly remembers the nearly 3,000 victims and stands in firm solidarity with their families, first responders, survivors, and all those whose lives were changed forever. 25 years later, their legacy remains powerful reminder of the need for sustained international cooperation in preventing and countering terrorist and extremist groups. This year also marks 20 years since the adoption of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorist Strategy. This fight remains a collective responsibility. one that PAM actively supports through its longstanding partnership with UNOC and CETA. Today, we meet to address one of the most defining challenges of our time, protecting the democratic systems and societal trust in an era of rapid technological revolution. And in such an era, trust is more than ever an infrastructure. and infrastructure for our societies and for our democracies and for our states. Extremist and terrorist groups no longer operate solely through traditional clandestine networks. Instead, they benefit from online spaces using generative tools, deep fakes, shallow fakes, and encrypted platforms to disseminate sophisticated narratives, manipulate public emotion, and also identity-based polarization. Terrorists rarely radicalize through abstract ideology alone. They weaponize existing breakdowns in institutional and, again, societal trust. Of paramount concern is the alarming trend targeting the youngest and the most vulnerable citizens. Also, in my country, Italy, we have seen mind manipulation that push to terrorist acts, especially in the youngest generation. And it is very important also to help each country to invest in education. For example, some of our countries in Europe are starting educating from primary school, from elementary school, on how contrasting cyberbullying. This is just a start, but definitely it's not enough. And I think that PAM can definitely help with that. Terrorist networks are increasingly exploiting youth-oriented digital platform, social media, and online gaming environments to groom, emotionally manipulate, and radicalize children and adolescents and ever earlier stage of their development. Ms. German was pinpointing gaming platforms, and we should definitely consider them, because I will make a personal example. My son is six, he's asking me a gaming console. I cannot go on giving him like remote controls car and feeding him with other toys, because one day or another, he will be there, like many other young people, and if you see the numbers, of people using platforms such as Fortnite and Roblox, you see how vast it is. It's incredible, billions of people. And we have to consider this environment. Protecting the youth requires our strong commitment to sustain an immediate prevention-oriented shift, combining robust digital literacy, early detection, and coordinated safeguards involving families. educational institutions, and tech providers, especially, I would say. For this, I wish to thank the participation and contribution today from the office of Ms. Vanessa Frazier, Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Harm Conflict. To be noted that she had addressed a suggestion to PAM to address issue of line grooming of children by armed groups. This was the result of a fruitful collaboration in jointly preparing the report on children in armed conflict presented at the PAM's last plenary session held last May in Budva, Montenegro. I hope that today's exchange will contribute to a stronger parliamentary voice within global counterterrorism efforts, generate practical recommendations, and enforce our collective engagement towards technical regulation. progress that advances upholding the values of human rights and dignity. And for example, we are thinking to set up, thanks to CGS and to PAM, but including other organizations, an observatory on AI in the enlarged Mediterranean to gather all these signals and try to connect the dots and see what's next, what are our next challenges. So I thank you for your attention and look forward for a productive discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, President Centemero, for your words regarding the role of PAM in the mechanism, as well as the idea of the large Mediterranean the global South on the observatory, which we already have, but we expanded the scope in this moment. Now we start a series of intervention by member of parliament and experts, so we can enrich the discussion and collect then what will be the final recommendation for the action to come in the coming weeks. I have now the pleasure next to me to give the floor to His Excellency Mohammed Al Qawaider, who is the head of cybersecurity in the government of the United Arab Emirates. Please.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Your Excellency. Thank you very much, everybody, for again giving us this great opportunity. So we all agree on the importance of that counterterrorism. It is definitely affecting and impacting everybody in that perspective, especially our younger generation who actually uses technology more than we do. So if we give the model that we use in UAE, given the fact that we recently have gone through a crisis, we've seen so many of those attacks where technology have been abused to do many of those attacks. So we know UAE, just for the context of knowledge, is moved towards many of the digital transformations, digital transformations that touches not only the technology, but also the curriculum. the education system, the culture in every single sectors of UAE, from energy sector to aviation sector, to so many of those sectors have already implemented a digital transformation as well as in an agentic framework. As a matter of fact, there was a decree that all entities need to move towards 50% agentic framework by end of next year. And that's why many of them, they have already, as a matter of fact, passed and been using so many of those models in that perspective, been using so of those sovereign data abilities that actually leverage and use the different data classifications that we are actually really on. So we turned this city into a smart city. Technology is everywhere. Entities are depending on technologies. We depend our essence of life in technology. And this is where the risk comes. This is where we need to ensure every single technology is actually secured by design. That's where we have great partnership with private, public, people, partnership. And this is where those four Ps comes together in order to provide that partnership in this perspective. That tax usually comes from three major things, and these are the threats that we actually see. One is cyber crimes, fraud, scams, impersonations, and many of those crimes that we, as a matter of fact, see in a daily perspective. Then there is the cyber terrorism. And this is more radicalization aspects of it. This is where technology is used or misused to do and send or radicalize in that perspective, or even used in order to conduct or perpetrate attacks by any of those groups. And yes, we've seen, be it internal, be it activists, be it cybercrime groups, be it state or non-state actors, many of those aspects. This comes together into the cyber warfare, the hybrid. warfare that's been already coming and going in that perspective, the fifth generation warfares. So I give a context in that. In a daily basis, we've been facing more than 800,000 attacks in the past, and we're continuing. As a matter of fact, recently it reached to only 550,000 attacks. these attacks not the DOS, these attacks not a regular denial of service attacks or distribution denial of which actually has a large number of a quantity. No, we're talking here about wiping attack, a malware that comes into the system, wipes all of the data or touches in that aspects. We're talking about ransomware with a sophistication of no ransom is actually needed. They just lock the all of this data and want to disrupt as well as distract many of those aspects. We're talking about going into the operational technology, OT technology, and disrupting desalination, be it for the water, energy for the water. And yes, with every kinetic attacks we've seen in the past, again, almost three months or six months, there was a cyber attacks and organized again, darknet that actually leverage and uses all of those vulnerabilities and try to take advantage of those attacks and benefit from all of those aspects. So this is, I'm sure, not only for or on UAE, but also different countries may be faced a similar things. Most important thing is the healthcare. We've seen attacks on the healthcare that are actually really perpetrated against the human and the life of those human operations and things, given the fact that our healthcare system is all digitized in that perspective, all operation even made by robotics in that aspect. AI is actually used in every single section or sectors of that healthcare aspect. We've seen those targeting not only the critical infrastructures, the sectors, the destructor of Viber or many of those, but also going towards the people, going, and this is where the terrorism, the cyber terrorism comes. And this where, again, we saw so many of those misinformation or disinformation or exploiting psychological factors or targeting society, public trust, and many of those aspects that actually uses AI. not only from the deep fake aspects that we actually see, but also creating platforms that fully, as a matter of fact, generated by AI, and everybody can generate one now easily in less than one hour using cloud or using any of those algorithms here and there. And yes, they use these type of systems nowadays. And these are, as a matter of fact, allows us to know the importance of the dual of use of this technology. Weaponization or defensive in those aspects. Weaponization, media, expanding media misinformation, synthetic type of propaganda, personalized targeting, multi-nagual reach that they actually use today, creating those again, deep fake or many of those variant recycling, subverting moderations, more than 5,000 AI generated extremist content. As a matter of fact, we detected during only these three months in that aspects, adopted or used by terrorist group in that aspects, as well as on demand and dark economy where the virtual currencies comes and support as well as fund many of those aspects where we follow up in those great partnership where we definitely take down many of those infrastructure. So AI generated so many of those aspects that actually change it from a content to a catastrophe. And this is where we see those cyber attacks re-engineered by AI. Not only, again, the phishing and the generic this and the malware or the social engineering or the scale of it and the volume and the quantity and the quality of that. As a matter of fact, $5 only you can get your, again, entry for an AI deep identity kit that allows you to create your own again, media content in that aspects, with a subscription model of $5 or even, you can jailbreak it and use it for any uncensored type of control in those aspects. So many of those actually coordinated using, again, the AI in that perspective. However, AI also used for egg shield, and that's what we actually leverage it and use it for. The defensive mechanism for AI that provided us is really added great value to us all and to our partners. From a predictive analysis that we actually see from this information and in many of those watch list OSINT systems that we have, from the chain analysis and following the money on the crypto world that is actually out there. to actually countering the narratives and leveraging and using and detecting many of those to the big data triage, to the automated moderations that we see here. So there is definitely rights by design that we actually implement in many of those systems with OSINT, again, capability on that perspective. I'm sure you've seen the report of, again, Anthropic, where they actually mentioned how AI is used to misuse many of those, again, models. There were, again, many of the misinformation and disinformation with all the respect to the confident that was actually reflected there. But yes, AI is used or misused in those, again, radicalization or aspects on this. Roblox was mentioned. I don't know how many Roblox cases we've been actually following for the past only maybe three or four years. And this always been taken down in that perspective and countering with a great opportunity of other great people, student, and leveraging on that culture of our, again, eco and educational systems. So the framework for resiliency definitely needs everybody to work together, definitely need the partnership. We cannot do that ourself. these terrorism or many of the misuse of this, they do not distinguish between country, between entity, between people, between any of those aspects. And this is where the partnership comes, public, people, private partnership. There is a national readiness program that we have in order to, as a matter of fact, work in educational systems to really leverage the culture and the values that we have in order to send the right message in here and there. We use defensive AI at scales. We use, again, guardrails and safeguards in order to ensure every system is used within those controllable aspects. We have signed so many, those, again, MOUs with our private sectors, with those platforms, whenever it's used, need to be used we then that regional aspect on this and and one technology comes the new I'm sure you will be hearing about that is the quantum so we yesterday we had a great post-quantum readiness and how we are preparing for the post-quantum readiness so two years ago UAE have already mentioned or issued that decree of post-quantum and today 10 to 12 percent of our entities as a matter of fact already embedded the post-quantum cryptologies as well as the post-quantum vectors that are with NIST in that aspect. So we're moving with that. But imagine that post-quantum harvest today, decrypt tomorrow, goes into the hand of someone in that perspective and maybe misuse it and use it in that aspects. And this is where it's very important to leverage these in a very controllable governed framework. So the global technology landscapes will always evolve. Today we speak about AI, tomorrow we speak about quantum, then we speak about autonomous, robots, and many of those things to come. But still, those could be misused or abused in that perspective where the human values is still the same. And this is what we need to focus on, coming up together in order to send the right message, in order to build that right framework in these aspects. And this is where we come in that our counter cyber threats or our counter cyber terrorism framework where we use, again, so many of those assets, governing policies, procedures, as well as legislations in that. aspects. Partnership, we need everybody, society, as well as public, private, people, internally, externally, and that aspect, we need to start working with securing gaming platforms, securing those platforms, LLM models, and many of those models to put those guardrails by design, securing the content, or working together with our private sectors. Cybersecurity education, and as a matter of fact, looking on that, this is one of the initiatives that we have called CyberPulse, that actually goes into every home and that perspective and send the right way of using technology. The community awareness, train the trainer, cyber ambassador, cyber, again, diplomacy, many of those are some of the initiative we started in order to ensure the right use of those technology. One of the major things is the startups and urban north. So the younger generation, the use of their technology, if we can really empower it and tailor it towards the right way and allow them to start many of those startups. We recently have 27 startups done by young generation, 18 to 19 to 20 years old, who actually have great innovative ideas and change those into a great idea in that perspective and the startups that value today for more than $50 million, as a matter of fact, and acquired by many of those startups and as well as big companies. So all of these are very important and I will end up with, again, the message that we are sending here. Cybersecurity is the responsibility of everybody. That countering terrorism is the responsibility of everybody. And together, definitely, we need everybody in that perspective in order to leverage this technology for the best that we do. We have specific or special models that may be tailored for us, but we need to really come together, learn more, and mutually benefit each other. Thank you very much for that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dr. Kuwaiti, and I get the conclusion of your meeting AI is an opportunity and they share the responsibility. Indeed, this is the key. I have a long list of speakers. I ask, please, to short as much as possible so that everybody will have the opportunity to take the floor. And now we have a member of parliament. I have the pleasure to give the floor to Honorable Tubadur Gut from Turkey, who is the Vice President of the PAM Women Parliamentary Forum?

Thank you very much. Excellencies, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking the PAM Center for Global Studies, together with CTE and UNOCT, for convening this special event. Cooperation among all stakeholders present today is essential to identify common and coherent strategies to counter online terrorist narratives worldwide. As Vice President of the Pan Women Parliamentary Forum, I would like to focus my remarks on a dimension of this challenge that too often remains at the margins of our debates, countering online terrorist narratives from the perspective of women and girls. Women and girls and children in general are frequently among the first victims of violent extremism. Their safety, mobility, and economic opportunities curtailed even more severely than those of their male counterparts. Yet, women are far more than victims. As community leaders, professionals, daughters, sisters, and mothers, they shape the values and either resist or enable extremist influence within families and communities. Armed groups, terrorist and extremist organizations understand this, which is the reason why they deliberately weaponize gender. They glamorize violence to attract young men, while offering young women a narrative of belonging, purpose, and agency, often through marriage to fighters or motherhood within the movement. Countering this narrative therefore requires messaging that is equally deliberate and equally attentive to gender. The digital battlefield has also evolved. Extremist actors no longer rely on a single platform. They move fluidly across social media, chat rooms, and the darknet. Further, we are witnessing the growth of misogynist online spaces the so-called manosphere, which feed a parallel radicalization pipeline and increasingly intersect with violent extremist narratives. I would also like to draw your attention to the accelerating and expanding space being taken by artificial intelligence in this landscape, since they change both the scale and the precision of the threat. Generative AI now allows extremist actors to mass produce propaganda and deepfake audio or video at negligible cost, and to translate and localize it instantly across languages and cultural contexts. Recommender algorithms can identify and target vulnerable women and girls with tailored content long before any human moderator intervenes. AI-generated disinformation, often associated to fake pictures and videos, can also be weaponized specifically against women in public life to discredit and silence them. However, the same technologies can also strengthen early detection, provided Parliament legislates wisely and holds governments and platforms accountable for how these systems are deployed. Facing this evolving threat requires prevention that bridges the online and offline worlds, digital literacy and source verification skills, a credible civil society presence online that counters extremist narratives, and shared standards agreed jointly by platforms, policymakers, and practitioners. UNFAM took a concrete action, nominating Honorable Joana Lima of Portugal, here with us today, as its Special Rapporteur on online violence against women. I am sure that Honorable Lima will tell us a few words later. I hope that today's discussion will help us move from shared analysis to concrete, actionable proposals. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Honorable. I was listening with attention to what you said. On the presentation of Dr. Al-Kuwaiti, I was reading his presentation. There was a lot on women and protection that you were saying. And with your agreement, we will share your presentation with everyone. And I remember a few years ago, there was a presentation by Dr. Honorable Alia Buran, who was the head of the Jordanian delegation to PAM, president of the first political committee. And at that time, in the fight against Daesh, she said Daesh was able to prepare 40,000 messages per day. Imagine now with artificial intelligence, that is multiplied by 1,000, 1 million, and that's what comes to my mind. Said so, I have now, I thank Honorable Durgut, and I have the pleasure to give the floor to Honorable Deborah Bergamini from Italy, who is the PAM rapporteur on political and security affairs. Please.

Thank you, dear Sergio, and let me greet all excellencies and dear friends who chose to be present to this very timely and relevant side event at the UNGA. And thank you for giving me the floor for a few minutes just to share with you very few considerations, starting from my point of view, which is my country, Italy. And from my point of observation, it is very clear to me that the threat in the Euro-Mediterranean and Gulf regions has shifted dramatically in the last few years. Extremist narratives have moved from physical space and occupied social media, gaming platforms, and the speakers who spoke before, Mr. Zuev, Mrs. German, said that very, very well. The gaming sector is something that, as parliamentarians, we should definitely work on and very, very, very quickly, because This way, they can reach younger generations, more vulnerable, more dependent, twisting the meaning of the word trust, which is exactly the word you chose to entitle this event, trust. It's totally, completely, all the time being twisted by the way social media and gaming platforms are manipulated. And if you're not able to build a real sense of trust in younger generation, what can you expect of the future to come? So this is a major responsibility as parliamentarians we share for sure. The radicalization timeframe has compressed significantly. Traditional ideologies keep on being hybridized with decentralized digital communities, multi-platform networks are targeting youth through gamification, dynamics and emotional manipulation, emotions. Grounded in the conviction that modern security challenges cannot be tackled in isolation, I am very happy that PAM has been able to pursue a comprehensive approach, coherent with the European Union, with the UN, and regional bodies. And this involves having actively supported the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy as a cornerstone of global cooperation, while partnering directly with many agencies like UNOCT and many others, and specialized law enforcement networks to deliver vital capacity building, enhanced border security, something very much talked about within our public opinions. and cut off the illicit financial flows that sustain terrorist networks. So by using these strategic partnerships, together with the Center for Global Studies, PAM has produced dedicated reports. Please read them. Please read them. They are very good, analyzing the nexus between transnational security challenges and the malicious exploitation of emerging technologies in AI. Some of the topics also included bioterrorism, there's this one, which is very good, cybersecurity, cryptocurrencies, the dark web, and the security implication of spyware misuse. And then PAM, again, in partnership with the permanent missions of Cyprus and Italy, CTD, UNOCT, convened a high-level side event on the margins of the 2026 UN Counterterrorism Week. And this meeting was focused on technological sovereignty, another key aspect for all parliaments today, regulatory frameworks and the critical legislative role of parliaments in addressing malicious exploitation of technology. Of course, this is a very difficult effort for parliaments to adapt to the fluidity of the transformation ongoing. This is the major challenge we all share. It's transversal. It regards all parliamentarians from every political side. And sometimes we should play on the favourable aspect of this transversality. So we need to work together to face this very urgent challenge that we are having. In September 2025, my country, Italy, adopted the first European Union's comprehensive national artificial intelligence framework, designed to complement the broader AI Act from the European Union. Among other provisions, the Italian law criminalizes the malicious dissemination of harmful AI-generated content. Because modern extremist recruitment relies heavily on exploiting the vulnerabilities and the emotions of children and youth, regulatory enforcement must be written in the proper way, thought in the proper way, which is not easy, I recognize, and matched by preventive education. So we go back to the word trust. how you build up an untwisted trust thanks to technology. This is the real question we are all trying. And you know, there's a huge debate about forbidding the use of social media to children or adolescents under a certain age. Every national parliament is facing with this challenge. And somehow, people say, yeah, but it's not liberal. You cannot forbid the use to this. But on the other hand, we feel heavily the responsibility of regulating this aspect. I think we should work also at the palm level on this. It's a no brainer, in my opinion. And another thing that we as parliamentarians should do is really fight against polarization, because we cannot recon AI and technology companies as the sole responsible for what is going on among our younger generation. We bear the responsibility of the message and example that we represent in our parliaments. And polarisation is taking a lot of space, even within debates in parliaments. I think we should be more careful and think better of what we represent as an example to younger generation and maybe try to help our countries to dissolve or at least limit polarization through the activity and the language and the message of our parliaments. I'm very happy that this topic will be further discussed in the launch of the PAM Youth Initiative. We can do a lot in the next months. Thank you. all of you, because if you're here, it means that you are already part of this challenge. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Honorable Bergamini. You see, she's our rapporteur on political and security. So we are trying really to make sure that all the elements fit together as a crossbeam throughout the activity of PAM, first, second, and third standing committee. Thank you. Now I have the pleasure to give the floor to Mr. Nicolas Gerard, who is the Chief Regional Partnership Monitoring and Reporting Team at the Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict. Mr. Gerard.

Good morning to everyone. Thank you very much to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, seated in UNOCT, for convening this important discussion during the General Assembly. As we discuss artificial intelligence, digital governance and trust, I would like to bring an enhanced child protection perspective to this conversation, which many of the previous speakers have already brought, and focus on the impact, particularly of children affected by armed conflict. And I want to also highlight the work that has been done together, as the President of PAM mentioned, on this specific topic for the publication of a report. Much has already been said about how digital technologies are transforming the threat landscape. Armed groups, including those designated as terrorists, are increasingly using social media, messaging applications, online platforms, and emerging technologies to spread propaganda and hate speech, exploit grievances, incite violence, and to recruit children. Increasingly, children are among the audiences being targeted. This is not a theoretical concern for children affected by armed conflict. Over recent years, we have observed a growing convergence between online spaces and child protection risks in situations of armed conflict. While recruitment and use of children has traditionally taken place in communities directly affected by conflict, digital technologies are creating entirely new pathways through which armed actors can reach children directly. Today, recruitment does not happen only in villages, schools, camps or communities. Increasingly, it happens online. Through social media feeds, gaming platforms, encrypted messaging applications, and algorithmic amplification, harmful content can reach children wherever they are, often beyond the visibility of parents, caregivers, teachers, or child protection actors. At my office, that of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, We recently conducted consultations with young people from across Africa in cooperation with the African Youth Envoy on digital risks and opportunities. The messages we heard were strikingly consistent from young people across Africa. Young people expressed concern about misinformation, hate speech, cyberbullying, online harassment, and the misuse of digital platforms to glorify armed groups and spread extremist narratives. Many described how armed actors use social media content to romanticize violence, portray fighters as heroes, and create a sense of belonging, identity, and purpose that can be deeply appealing to children that are facing insecurity, exclusion, or lack of opportunity. For conflict-affected children, these vulnerabilities are often compounded. Many have experienced already displacement, disrupted education, family separation, poverty, or trauma. Armed actors understand these vulnerabilities and actively seek to exploit them. Armed actors rarely recruit through ideology alone. They recruit by pretending to offer belonging where there is isolation. status, where there is marginalization, and certainty, where there are fear and instability. This observation is as true online as it is offline. Artificial intelligence risks accelerating these trends. AI can make harmful content easier to produce, easier to personalize, and easier to disseminate at scale. It can amplify emotional manipulation, reinforce existing biases, and target specific audiences with unprecedented precision. This presents significant challenges for governments, international organizations, technology companies, and importantly, parliamentarians. But from our perspective, this is not only a technology challenge. It is fundamentally a child protection challenge. The rights of children must remain central as debates on digital governance and AI continue to evolve. The Convention on the Rights of the Child applies online just as it does apply offline. Children have the right to protection from violence, exploitation, and abuse, regardless of whether those threats originate in physical environments or digital environments. This principle should guide our collective response. Allow me to offer four brief observations. First, child protection considerations should be systematically integrated into AI governance and digital policy frameworks. As governments and legislatures develop regulatory responses to emerging technologies, child rights must not be treated as an afterthought. Safety by design approaches, age-appropriate protections, and child rights impact assessments should form part of responsible digital governance. Second, and many of you have mentioned this, digital literacy must increasingly be understood as a protection tool. The young people we consulted repeatedly emphasized the importance of equipping children, caregivers, educators, and communities with the skills necessary to identify manipulation, misinformation, and recruitment tactics online. Prevention begins with awareness. Third, engagement with the private sector is indispensable. Technology companies play a critical role in shaping online environments. They have the capacity and the responsibility to identify harmful content, strengthen safeguards, and reduce opportunities for exploitation. Effective prevention, therefore, requires meaningful partnership between governments, industry, international organization, civil society, and parliamentarians. Fourth, we need stronger evidence and research. Technology is evolving rapidly, often faster than policy responses. We must invest in understanding how armed actors use emerging technologies, how children are affected, and which prevention approaches work best. This brings me to the role of parliaments. Parliaments have a unique contribution to make in addressing these challenges. Through legislation, they can help establish balanced regulatory frameworks that protect children while safeguarding human rights and fundamental freedoms. Through oversight, parliaments can hold institutions and companies accountable for the effectiveness of policies and safeguards. Through representation, they can help rebuild the trust that many of you have mentioned between citizens and institutions and contribute to inform public discourse in increasingly fragmented information environments. Parliamentary diplomacy also has an important role to play. Online threats do not respect borders. Lessons learned in one region can inform effective responses elsewhere. Exchanges between parliamentarians can support the development of common principles, promote good practices, and strengthen prevention-oriented cooperation across regions. Allow me to conclude with one final reflection. In discussions surrounding terrorism, violent extremism, and emerging technologies, there is often a strong emphasis on security. Security matters, but when children are involved, a protection lens is essential. Our office has consistently advocated that children associated with armed forces or armed groups should primarily be viewed as children and victims of violence. Experience has demonstrated that protection, rehabilitation, and reintegration approaches are not only consistent with children's rights, they are also critical investments in long-term peace and security. As we enter the age of artificial intelligence, we must ensure that technological innovation is matched by protection. If armed actors are adapting their methods to the digital age, then our prevention efforts must evolve as well. And if trust is one of the defining issues of our time, then protecting children, both offline and online, must be at the center of our efforts to build resilient, peaceful, and inclusive societies. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I wish to thank you very much. And at our plenary session, also in collaboration with you, but with one of our honorary delegate, Honorable Derar from the Emirates, we have listened to a report which make us become impaled on children trafficking and the use of children by terrorist organization as young as 11. to carry out suicide bombing. And that was crazy and was really incredible. Thank you very much. I have the pleasure to give the floor to Honorable Pedro Roque, who is the Vice President for the Third Standing Committee, which deals also with the human rights of children. Please, Pedro, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Sergio. Now, Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, speaking for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, PAM, I sincerely thank the UN Office on Counter-Terrorism, UNOCT, and the Counter-Terrorist Committee Executive Directorate, CTE-D, for backing PAM and its Center for Global Studies in organizing this vital meeting. So, serving as President of PAM's Committee on Human Rights and Dialogue Among Civilizations, my remarks today center on a critical issue, the recruitment of children in conflicts by armed groups, terrorist factions, and extremists, with an emphasis on online radicalization narratives. PAM prioritized child protection within its humanitarian and legal agenda. partnering closely with the UN's special representative for children and armed conflict. CTEV's 2025 report, growing alarm as terrorist exploitation of children rapidly evolves, outpacing member state responses. Likewise, highlights deep anxiety over the escalating sophisticated online recruitment of children by global terrorist networks. to zero in on children, terrorist and extremist networks have built complex systems blending traditional methods with advanced digital tools that simultaneously exploit multiple vulnerabilities. Accordingly, they deploy targeted tactics like gender differentiated recruitment and outreach through online forums, encrypted chats, and gaming platforms. methods heavily documented among extremist entities like Daesh. So, dear friends, for parliamentarians, the core challenge is that youth indoctrination by terrorists moves swiftly, supercharged by tech advancements, whereas public policy takes time to draft, pass, and enact. This creates a growing gap between terrorist innovation and state response capacities. giving international alarm. Artificial intelligence regulation stands out as a fundamental element of a global policy countermeasure. Therefore, PAM urges and stands ready to help member states in order to promote talks on global AI regulatory frameworks. This is precisely where our duty as national and international lawmakers begin. To counter this threat, we must pursue preventive measures, including youth-inclusive decision-making frameworks, robust funding for youth-led prevention, and human rights-centered rehabilitation and reintegration programs. I thank you all for your attention.

Thank you, Pedro, Honorable Roger, many thanks. And now I have the pleasure to give the floor to Honorable Mohamed Boulanin, who is the PAM previous president, please, from Egypt.

Thank you very much, Mr. Sergio. And thank you, special thanks to United Nation that's hosting this great meeting. And I think that I have attended a lot of meeting before concerning the AI and the effect of the AI for the future. And I really would like to have and to point out some of these things which probably nobody talking about it. I have been hearing all what you have been saying now, and I agree for all the conclusion which everybody talking about. But I would like to stop to say, what we have to do tomorrow. What is our plan in order to change the map from talk, discussing, and write agreement to an action. We need an action and immediate action. The story, it is now stranding. The worldwide is talking about AI. And the companies which are working in AI are proud to make a lot of profit every day. This is a big challenge. This is the future. This is a business. Whatever happening, they are running. And in different technology, in different know-how. And everybody from the worldwide is talking about his own technology, which nobody else has been done before. And the value of this technology is sold with a very high prices. Other people take the technology from one part to the other to develop and to be a partner and to have another people specialized and universities are working in the story. And everybody's happy. Some people are happy for the humanity, for the benefit of all the people, and other people are talking about something else, the contrary of what the humanity need, which all the aspects you have been hearing now. Indeed, I would like this conclusion today to start to talk about the speed between our response and the speed of their activity and their speed of what they are doing. There is a big gap. What they are doing quickly and the development in their business and our response, we talk about legislation. Where is the legislation happening until now? This is one of the most important issue. Who has to start to put the element and the subject of the new legislation? Who has to be aware to talk with all the parliamentary people worldwide to say, okay, this is the first draft which we can apply to all the parliamentary people worldwide. The connection between the United Nations with IPU has to start this. And this is the first step which we have to talking about. Then all the parliament can discuss, can talk, can give opinion. Then another committee has to be reshaped immediately now to put the first draft and from the first draft to start to implement and distribute it to the parliamentary people, also to the government. The story is not only our parliament, it's also the government has to be involved and between the government and the parliament has to produce the new legislation for the AI. Of course, As much as we are active, as much as we do in this is now, a lot of other surprise will happen. And a lot of struggle against this story would happen because a lot of profit, billions of dollars are every day created from the AI. This is the first recommendation for my speech now. When I have to start and who is going to put the first plant for this legislation. I believe the United Nations, with IPU, has to start. And this should be thanks to Mr. Sergio personally, which has been this organization and has been also involved in the AI from two years or three years ago. And it has a committee which has started to have the same recommendation since three years ago. Of course, today we talk about the future. And we are not against the AI development. We are happy because everybody now, I have my company now, I can go to my office and I say, okay, what happened today for my factory? And they are going to respond to say, okay, you have been saying this and this and this and the factory, this line is okay, this line is not. And the happened, the not happened, the is done. This is in few minutes every day because there is a program, this is very good for the benefit of the people. If you talk about the AI, when you need information, if you talk about VR for medication, if you are for learning, a lot of it is wonderful. Also in the machinery and production and everything, it's great. But we are afraid for what's written for the humanity, for what happened against the humanity and everybody is talking about it now. I think the second step, which is very important also, to give the hope. that there is trust. And I think that most of you have been talking about education for the children and the awareness of this in order to give the children since the beginning and also in the school and also those people what's happening because thought cannot defeat it with weapons or can be defeated with law. It's not enough. We never change. This is what happened also in Egyptian experience. What happened? We have the terrorists against a group of tourists coming to destroy the state and about to be from outside, something from inside. You know what happened 15 years ago. But we defeat. How we defeat these things? We thought. We analyze the reason what's happening and we start to talk about the idea to discuss, to make them able to change their mind. Not everything was weapon and everything was law. Law, we need it. And we need it, yes, but it's not enough. Thought has to be defeated with thought, with the same methods, with the same idea, with the same picture, with the same song, with the same music, same. This is how to feed other things in project. I think that the right track now is to start. The thing is now is to distribute also the rules and to talk seriously, strongly, and speedily as much as we can. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Ahmed. Now I have the pleasure to give the floor to Ms. Lily Vincente, Program Manager, Global Program on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism here at the United Nations. Lily, please.

Thank you.

Dear Excellencies, dear colleagues, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this timely discussion. I'm speaking today from UNOCT, where I lead our work on the intersection of violent extremism and AI and PCVE under the Global Programme on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism. Through the programme, we support governments, civil society, youth leaders, practitioners, and law enforcement to better understand and address conditions conducive to violent extremism and terrorism. And building on Undersecretary General Zuv's earlier remarks, I would like to focus on a practical question for today, which is how parliaments can help ensure that AI strengthens prevention rather than amplifying the harms and vulnerabilities already present online. As we've heard today, AI is changing how online content can be produced, adapted, and distributed. It can reduce the time, cost, and skills needed to create persuasive content at scale, including across languages and contexts. And there are two pathways that we need to keep distinct. First, as we've heard, is terrorist and violent extremist actors deliberately misusing AI tools to refine their own propaganda, translate content, and create synthetic material or test ways of reaching new audiences. And the second is AI-enabled services. that may create unintended harms, including where chatbots reinforce users' grievances or paranoia, particularly where safeguards are weak. And these are different problems that require different responses. At the same time, within our own work at UNOCT, we've heard from PCV practitioners and have learned how AI can be used for good to meet prevention objectives. Through the Republic of Korea supported AI and PCV project, which we're currently implementing, we've examined how PCV practitioners are already using AI tools and where they see potential and also what support they need to do so responsibly in a way that minimizes risks and harms. Through this AI and PCV project, we've consulted more than 120 practitioners globally across 45 different countries, and they've identified potential uses of AI, such as detecting and analyzing online narratives and how they're produced, developing their own communication materials and making information more accessible. Yet fewer than a quarter of the PCV practitioners that we heard from are using AI in their own work. And among government practitioners, the practitioners, the figure was around one in 10, so significantly lower. We heard from them and there was real interest in terms of using AI in their work, but also uncertainty about data protection. reliability bias, and the absence of clear institutional guidance. And this points to a clear gap. AI tools are advancing rapidly, but the capacity to make informed decisions about their use is not keeping pace, particularly in community facing settings where local context, trust, and human relationships are central to prevention. And this is where the United Nations Office of Counterterrorism's Counterterrorism Center and the Global PCV Program work is focused. We work with governments, with civil society, with youth, with gamers. We've heard a lot about gamers today, so I'm quite excited to be able to say we work directly with gamers and game developers to really take a look at AI and PCE with respect to their work and how to protect human rights and preserve trust within those prevention realities. And we're now applying this approach through a second phase of work, also generously supported by the Republic of Korea, in which we're providing mentorship to three civil society organizations focused on PCVE. We decided first to focus on civil society organizations, mainly because it's a contained structure where we can implement quite rapidly within the scope of the project's limited time. One organization that we're working with is formalizing governance for existing internal AI use, their own shared tools and data safeguards for staff guidance. Another is defining the safeguards needed before introducing AI into their prevention analysis and journalist work. And a third organization that we're working with is exploring an emotional support chatbot for returnees with a focus on safe design, human oversight, and crisis response pathways. Through this process, we've seen that in some cases, Responsible PCV decision would be to redesign an application or postpone it and sometimes choose not to use AI at all. And this is not a failure of innovation, it's how we protect people and preserve public trust. And this is also where we see parliamentarians having a real practical role to help close the gap between high level AI principles and how these tools are actually used in prevention settings. First, parliaments can ask whether existing frameworks on AI, online safety, data protection, and consumer protection adequately addressed the two distinct risks. So the deliberate misuse of AI by terrorists and violent extremist actors and unintended harms arising from AI enabled services. Second, parliaments can ask, I can make those safeguards meaningful through their budget and oversight functions. For instance, by asking whether there's a clear authority responsible for implementation. whether it has the technical expertise and resources to assess compliance, and whether public procurement and funding frameworks require adequate risk assessment, data protection, testing, and human oversight before AI is introduced into sensitive prevention work. And this is to help ensure that public investment in AI is matched by the institutional capacity and accountability required to use it responsibly. Third, we also see parliaments using committee hearings, inquiries and parliamentary exchanges to ensure that policy and oversight are informed by the realities of implementation. That means hearing directly from those closest to the issue, such as PCV practitioners, community leaders and gamers, as these are the individuals who are dealing with the threat on a day-to-day basis first hand. Building on the close collaboration already underway between Pam, CTED and UNOCT and the work of our colleagues on the model legislative provisions on terrorist misuse of AI program, we'd welcome the opportunity to extend this practical agenda with interested member states and parliaments. We really see a focused exchange in terms of bringing legislators together and government representatives as having real value. Through the global program for PCVE, UNOCT could bring the evidence, the tools, and the lessons from our existing AI and PCV project, including a practice guide on AI and PCVE, which we published earlier this year, and the organizational readiness work that we're currently implementing. And as I've mentioned earlier, we've heard gaming and young people being referenced quite a lot already today, and our global program works directly with these beneficiaries, with young content moderators, individuals that are on gaming adjacent platforms, and youth leaders globally, and have facilitated dialogue with these stakeholders and policymakers to develop common solutions for prevention. For us, the aim would be to move beyond principles to share legislative and oversight practice, examine realistic prevention scenarios, and identify the safeguards institutions need before AI is introduced into sensitive PCV work. This is a concrete way to help ensure that AI serves prevention and public trust by grounding decisions in evidence, community experience, and human rights, and strengthening institution capacity to act responsibly and in accordance with international human rights standards. I'll stop there. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ms. Inciante. It was very interesting listening to what you said. And before you, Mr. Gerard, there are a lot of things that you are doing that are very useful for our background work, to reflect into reflection paper for our parliamentarians in order to have a coherent knowledge. And listening to you, we made, thanks to CGIS, a study on the dark web and recruitment, dark web gaming, and very important that you refer to AI hallucinations. We had a special meeting during our plenary session on how now our parliaments have to regulate the use of AI by their officers because And this was a case both for the staff of the Parliament, but also for those who assist the parliamentarians, the large use of AI in preparing draft paper, draft law, position paper for Parliament. And what the Parliament found out, but also the case in many courts in Europe, that AI was providing information that do not exist. They were referring to law, sentences. presidents, name of judges that do not exist. The AI was programmed to satisfy your request. So if they couldn't find the answer, they made one for you. And there have been in the UK, in France, in Italy, lawyers who have been condemned by the court using references that do not exist. And we are working now in Pamu with our country based on the experience from Gulf countries and the France, a kind of charter on the use of AI for parliamentarians and the staff of parliaments to avoid this kind of crazy thing application. Thanks a lot. Now I have the pleasure to give the floor to Honorable Mirela Fortuna, our former rapporteur on political issues from Romania and all our solidarity to you because she is also the member of parliament elected in Tulcea on the border of Ukraine. Mirela, please.

Thank you, Ambassador. Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, first of all, I would like to congratulate the Parliamentary Assembly on the Mediterranean for organizing this high relevant event. In my capacity as a Romanian MP, I emphasize that Romania strongly supports a human-centered approach to artificial intelligence, where innovation and human rights advance together. We support international standards aligned with the Global Digital Compact and stronger cooperation to counter AI-generated disinformation, protect democratic integrity, and rebuild public trust. Artificial intelligence is transforming our societies at unprecedented speed, acting as a double-edged sword. It offers valuable opportunities for education, development, and public services, but it can also manipulate information and amplify extremist narratives. As these narratives become faster and harder to detect, new responsibilities arise for democratic institutions. Parliament cannot remain mere spectators. Our responsibility is not to stop innovation, but to ensure it develops within a transparent framework that protects democracy, security, and fundamental rights. At the core of this challenge is trust. When citizens lose trust in institutions, democratic societies become vulnerable to manipulation. Rebuilding trust requires transparency, active dialogue, and institutions that truly listen. Dear colleagues, online threats cross borders instantly. Our response demands close cooperation between parliaments, governments, international organizations, civil society, and the tech sector. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean provides an essential platform for this dialogue, and Romania is ready to contribute actively to multilateral and UN-led efforts on AI governance. As technology continues to evolve, our democratic institutions must evolve as well. technology must strengthen our societies, ensuring that human dignity, democratic values and security remain at the center of every decision we make. I hope today's decision will also help us answer an important question. How can we better provide, protect young people from online manipulation and radicalization, and what role should our parliament play in this effort? I believe that protecting the younger generations must be a key part of how we shape the future of artificial intelligence, a future that is not only innovative, but also safe, responsible, and worthy of their trust. Thank you. I would like to add that I listened very carefully to all the very good speeches, and I noticed that they have some key common words: child, children, young generation, women, girls. I agree with the idea that it's not enough just to talk, but we really have to act. Thank you.

Thank you, Honorable Fortuna. Now I have the pleasure to give the floor to our colleague, Member of Parliament from Serbia, Honorable Davidova.

Thank you, Excellencies, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Allow me to thank the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, its Center for Global Studies, as well as UNOCT and CTED for convening this important event. As it was pointed out by my distinguished colleagues, terrorist and extremist groups are increasingly exploiting online platforms, platforms, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies for radicalization, recruitment, and the spread of their destructive narratives. Beyond threatening international security, this phenomenon is eroding public trust, undermining institutional credibility, and fracturing democratic governance. In recent years, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean has been at the forefront of monitoring those worrying trends. Through the CGS and in close partnership with CTE and UNOCT, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean has published substantive reports on the malicious use of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies by terrorist networks, addressing how those technologies affect the integrity of the social fabric. Countering these transnational threats require moving behind fragmented measures toward comprehensive prevention-oriented framework that protects information, integrity, state credibility, and social cohesion. Parliamentarians have the responsibility to share this response. Parliamentary diplomacy bridges borders, recognizing that in an era where digital threats transcend national borders, interparliamentary dialogue facilitates the exchange of legislative best practices, harmonizes regional standards, and fosters mutual trust across the Euro-Mediterranean Gulf and surrounding areas. By leveraging transparent rights-based and coordinated parliamentary action, public trust can be protected and democratic resilience reinforced. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much. I have now on the list Honorable Joanna Lima who is, as you have heard, our new rapporteur on what children are concerned, and former president of the PAM Women Parliamentary Forum. Joana Lima will speak in French, and then we will make available the speech in English. Please.

Thank you very much, Ambassador Serge Piazzi. Excellency, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, before I start, Je tiens à exprimer ma sincère gratitude à l'Assemblée parlementaire méditerranéenne, à son Centre d'études mondiales, ainsi qu'au camp de Seti et à l'ONODAP pour l'organisation de cet événement aussi opportun qu'essentiel. Aujourd'hui, nous avons l'occasion cruciale de nous attaquer à l'une des menaces les plus pressantes qui pèsent sur la paix et la sécurité internationales: l'utilisation malveillante de l'intelligence artificielle et des technologies émergentes par des groupes terroristes et extrémistes. Ces acteurs transforment en profondeur la nature même des discours terroristes en exploitant des plateformes numériques pour diffuser leur propagande et alimentée de polarisation identitaire. À ma qualité de reporteuse de l'APM chargée de la lutte contre la violence en ligne à l'égard des femmes, je tiens à mettre en lumière une crise étroitement liée à la radicalisation en ligne, dont les racines sont identiques. des acteurs malveillants se servent de l'intelligence artificielle et des technologies numériques, non seulement pour recruter des populations vulnérables, mais aussi pour propager la haine, le harcèlement et la violence ciblés à l'encontre des femmes et des filles. Chers collègues, des analyses mondiales récentes menées notamment par la Noufem et l'Institut européen pour l'égalité entre les hommes et les femmes révèle que l'intelligence artificielle a dangereusement amplifié les abus en ligne, les rendant plus rapides, moins heureuses, plus sophistiquées et infiniment plus préjudicables. L'intelligence artificielle générative, en particulier, a déclenché une vague sans précédent de violences fondées sur la diffusion d'images non consensuelles. Ces actes ne révèlent pas de hasard. Ils visent délibérément à réduire les femmes au silence et à les évincer de la sphère publique. En somme, ces problèmes révèlent un échec systémique de la gouvernance numérique, à l'exquelle, internationalement, des millions de femmes et de jeunes filles subissent un déficit de protection considérable, puisque moins de 40 % des États se sont dotés de législations spécifiques pour réprimer efficacement de cyberharcèlement et les agressions en ligne. C'est pourquoi la PM, par l'intermédiaire de son Forum des femmes parlementaires, prend activement des mesures concrètes pour protéger des femmes et des jeunes filles, tant dans le monde réel que dans l'espace numérique. J'ai bon espoir que la discussion aujourd'hui portera ses fruits et nous permettra de faire un pas de plus vers la mise en place d'un écosystème numérique sécurisé, fiable et sûr pour tous. Merci beaucoup et pardon pour parler en français pour vous. Merci.

Thank you. I will answer in Portuguese now. Listen, we have reached the time which was given to us and we have used it completely up to the last minute. I have also a statement from our honourable Andreas Papasodimitris from Cyprus, who is the new PAM rapporteur on terrorism. who could not travel with us today. So we will distribute his speech with the report of this meeting. There are many recommendations which came out of this meeting, and at the base of this is cooperation, partnership, and the support which parliamentarians can give to the international community because of their responsibility in the normative regulatory field, so that they have something important to do to reflect, to assist the government and the people they represent. And this is very clear also in the cooperation with the United Nations, the European Union, and the other institution which deal, and the private sector, which deal with the development and the use of artificial intelligence, both for good purposes and the malicious use, how to counter that, how to be ready. I would like to finish on one note, because I remember when I was a child, I watched something on Italian television which at that time, I would be 12, 13, shocked me. And I went to find the information on artificial intelligence. In 1954, there was an American author, Frederic Brown, who wrote a very short science fiction text which became a little movie. The The book, the novel, is called The Answer. In 1954, there is one scientist, expert in America, who connect all the then computers of the world. He managed to work with his colleagues and they plug in a kind of ancestor of internet. They plug in all the computers of the world. And in the end, they are there, the machine are connected, and they ask a question. So they get together, and the answer was, is there a God? The machine answers, yes, now there is a God. Then the scientists, when they see the machine running alone, they try to unplug it. but electric shock killed all of them. Listening to you, this came back to my mind. I think we need the machine. It's important for our development, but don't be too late to unplug it or to control it. Thank you very much.