Counter Terror Business - Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Extremism and social media: what can be done?

Meghan Shaw — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 16:56:02 +0000

We take a look at how the world of social media has become a platform for terrorists and extremists to influence others, and explore what needs to be done to stop it.

Social media and an ever-growing digital world has had a positive effect in many ways. It can help people reconnect and forge new relationships, as well as helping businesses to grow.

However, it has also created an increase in loneliness and poor mental health, especially for the younger population.

Hannah Rose, an analyst with the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) thinktank, told The Guardian there had been a “surge in online extremist ecosystems” for several years, which remain “very easy for children to access”, and that “offline vulnerabilities, which kids are more likely to have, can make somebody more prone to adopting extremist views”.

Social media platforms like Telegram are one of the many ways extremists can meet, collate dangerous materials and influence others.

From socials to the streets

News stories of young people and adults found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism or taking part in extremist activities online have become more common over the past 20 years.

For example, the riots that began in Southport and spread across the UK were spurred on by misinformation spread online.

When false information circulated online about the identity of the attacker, many were quick to take the claims as truth.

This is direct proof that information on social media has the ability to influence many people, regardless of whether it is true or not.

Another example of acts of terrorism being prepared with help from digital resources comes from Liverpool earlier this year.

Then 20-year-old Jacob Graham was convicted of numerous offences, including Preparation of terrorist acts, two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications and four counts of possession of material likely to be useful to a terrorist. U

pon investigation, officers reviewed his media devices and identified that he had collected a huge number of manuals, instructions and publications, which focused on providing instructions for the manufacture of firearms, ammunition and explosives; some of which were printed out and stored in a folder in his home.

He was also found to have constructed a document entitled ‘Freedom Encyclopaedia’ and shared it with contacts over the internet. This was a manual filled with instructions on how to build weapons, including shotguns, nail bombs, explosives, including Black Powder (also known as gunpowder) and plastic explosive; ignition devices and instructions on how the perpetrators might evade the police.

Superintendent Andy Meeks of Counter Terrorism Policing North West (CTPNW) said: “Online extremism is a growing threat and this case sadly is a prime example; where a young man from Merseyside has become radicalised online, without ever having left his bedroom.

“He shared extreme content online recklessly and without any regard for who received his instructions or for what purpose. He even went so far as to say he intended this material to be instructional to other terrorists.”

What can be done?

It can seem that social media does more harm than good, but it is no good pretending it doesn’t exist. Instead, we need to make sure there are suitable protections in place so users are able to stay safe online and avoid dangerous content as much as possible.

One way the UK government has tried to do this is by introducing the Online Safety Act in October 2023. This piece of legislation aims to protect people online, particularly children, and urges tech firms to manage their platforms’ content more.

The bill enforces these companies to protect children and young adults from harmful and illegal material. This includes content that shows terrorism, coercive or controlling behaviour, and incites hatred and violence.

However, many organisations and experts have criticised the Act for not being strict enough, as well as voicing concerns over limiting freedom of speech.

Full Fact, for example, said that the Act “does not address health misinformation, which the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated could be potentially harmful.”

They also added that the Act does not “set out any new provisions to misinformation that happens during ‘information incidents’ when information spreads quickly online, such as during terror attacks or during the August 2024 riots following the Southport murders.”

Much of the pressure falls to the social media platforms themselves to keep their users safe, and implement proper moderation.

Following the Southport riots, Adam Hadley, executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, added: “Telegram and X must take immediate action to improve their content moderation and proactively manage their platforms to prevent further spread of violent disinformation. Both platforms bear some moral responsibility for the risk of physical violence resulting from unchecked extremist activity.”

Radicalisation in the Covid Era

Michael Lyons — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 15:38:57 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Since the announcement of lockdown measures in countries around the world in early 2020, there have been persistent concerns amongst policymakers, academics, and the media that the Covid emergency and our response could exacerbate radicalisation. This could be either by creating vulnerabilities among a wider pool of individuals, by speeding up the process, or by intensifying it. Looking at the wave of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories that have grown over the past 18 months, which certainly seem to have many of the hallmarks of extremist narratives, this is an understandable position. Largely, the arguments that Covid may exacerbate radicalisation fall into two inter-related premises: firstly, the conditions brought about from Covid may create or intensify vulnerabilities to radicalisation; and, secondly, the extra hours that individuals spent online makes radicalisation more likely.

The first premise is, I believe, theoretically sound – although we have no idea of knowing whether it will actually come to pass. The second, however, plays into existing “online radicalisation” tropes, in which the role of the Internet is given undue primacy over other factors to the point in which it is given radicalising agency to “brainwash” users. Below, I take each premise in turn and argue that we should not simply assume that we are due for a wave of Covid radicalisation in the near future.

Premise 1: The conditions brought about from Covid may create or intensify vulnerabilities to radicalisation.
In an article earlier this year, Francesco Marone argues that the Covid emergency could breed or exacerbate states of mind or grievances that underlie violent extremism. This includes: having grief from personal losses and trauma, a disruption to daily life which potentially leads to isolation, psychological distress, high degrees of uncertainty. These conditions, he argues, could be ideal for recruitment to flourish. Similarly, Gary Ackerman and Haley Peterson offer ten potential outcomes for terrorism as a result of the pandemic, noting that it may increase susceptibility to radicalisation by fostering anxiety and paranoia, as well as anti-government attitudes via conspiracy theories. All of the factors shown by Marone and Ackerman and Peterson have been posited in the academic literature as having the potential to exacerbate this process. Scholars such as Haroro Ingram have argued that many factors such as uncertainty and a perception of crisis can be exploited by extremist groups, who blame the in-group’s plight specific out-groups, and in turn, advocating that violence is the only way to solve the crisis. The threat of this combination of factors is put succinctly by Paul Gill, who recently stated that: ‘You have the perfect storm with Covid going on, and lockdown, where you’ve got people unmoored from their families and friends and going through psychological distress…Lots of people get radicalised for a lot of different reasons but there is definitely a pool of people that have become more vulnerable as a byproduct of the lockdown.’

This argument is a compelling one; it draws from decades of radicalisation research and theory and follows a sound internal logic. However, at present, we have no idea if it is correct in practice. Marone discusses some case studies of violent extremist activity that can be linked to Covid, such as that of Corey H, who stormed the Canadian Prime Minister’s residence and ascribed several pandemic-related grievances. Despite a small number of individual case studies, there is still limited empirical research to suggest that the threat from radicalisation has become worse since lockdown. In fact, the early available evidence suggests the opposite. In their recent Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, Europol noted that arrests for terrorism had more than halved in 2020 from the previous year, noting that it was unclear whether this indicated reduced activity or changes in operational capacity. They note that the pandemic has not changed groups’ modi operandi, but instead they have weaved the pandemic into their longstanding narratives, concluding that judging the extent of Covid on terrorism is difficult to assess. Pantucci took stock of the one-year impact of Covid on terrorism in March 2021, concluding that the impact had been relatively limited. Assessing terrorism databases, he notes that by almost every metric, violence is down year-on-year between 2019 and 2020. Similarly, van Dongen notes that the last year has clearly created instances of extremism related to the pandemic, which may present a broader threat to society and democracy, but that there have presently been too few cases to ascribe it a threat as violent extremism. It should be underscored that it is too early to make firm conclusions here, but the early evidence suggests more promise than initial worst fears.

Premise 2: The extra hours that individuals spent online makes radicalisation more likely.
Almost immediately after lockdown measures were introduced, concerns arose over increased screen time exacerbating radicalisation. In March 2020, Nikita Malik argued in Foreign Policy that self-isolation may be an effective tool for halting the spread of Covid, but that it will increase the speed of radicalisation. She notes that greater access to fake news, conspiracy theories, and extremist materials would intersect with individuals’ attempts to make sense of the crisis. In June 2020, Wales’ most senior counter-terrorism police officer offered concerns that children that were exposed to extremist content on social media had become radicalised during lockdown. Similarly, Kevin Southworth, of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit also expressed this concern, noting that the amount of flagged online terrorist content had increased by seven per cent (including a 43 per cent increase in far-right content) in 2020, suggesting that greater access to this content may lead to more individuals becoming radicalised. On the other side of the Atlantic, CNBC warned its readers that QAnon and anti-vaxxers had ‘brainwashed’ kids who were stuck at home, both via mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, but also via their parents who themselves have fallen deep into conspiracy theories.

To be clear, there is no doubt that extremist groups and their supporters have attempted to exploit Covid for their own purposes. In their study on far-right German party AFD’s Twitter activity, Lella Nouri and Suraj Lakhani found that online supporters positioned themselves in discourse to ‘other’ out-groups and ineligible in-groups such as the German Government and the global establishment. CVE organisation Moonshot have released two reports which show an increase in white supremacist search terms within both the US and Canada. A recent study by Garth Davies, Edith Wu, and Richard Frank conducted an analysis to assess the aggregate change of daily posts before and after lockdown on seven fora of incel, far-right, far-left, and jihadist ideology. They found that the far-right and incel platforms did see a statistically significant increase, suggesting that these ideologies may be most suited for the exploitation of pandemic-related grievances.

Jihadist groups also incorporated Covid into their propaganda. Mina al-Lami of BBC Monitoring notes that the so-called Islamic State (IS) saw the pandemic as an opportunity to call for attacks, but in contrast al-Qaeda used it as an opportunity to bring non-Muslims into Islam. She notes that jihadists have typically framed the pandemic as a punishment from God and have taken the opportunity to gloat towards the West’s handling of the emergency. Similarly, Aymenn al-Tamimi conducted an analysis of IS’ al-Naba newsletter, observing that the group framed this period as an opportunity exploit the division among its enemies that have arisen because of the pandemic. In comparative research analysing jihadist and the far right, Milo Comerford and Jacob Davey found that both movements were opportunistically using the pandemic to advance their objectives. They note the overlap between far-right accelerationist and the apocalyptic jihadist narratives which both involve supporters hastening a crisis to advance the movement. They do observe differences, however, with the jihadists framing Covid as God’s work while the far-right ascribed blame to minority communities.

Despite the obvious increase in the supply of extreme content available to users, we should be sceptical that this will necessarily exacerbate radicalisation. As Maura Conway correctly asserts: ‘There is no yet proven connection between consumption of and networking around violent extremist online content and adoption of extremist ideology and/or engagement in violent extremism and terrorism.’ Although there are a handful of studies that have taken to studying this in an experimental format, this is still a field that is very much in its infancy. Moreover, studies have repeatedly demonstrated that although the Internet is important in contemporary cases of violent extremism, offline factors remain key. In their 2017 literature review on the topic of online radicalisation, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Nick Kaderbhai note that ‘the vast majority of authors argue that, while the Internet plays a facilitating role, in most cases the individual must still also be in contact with [face-to-face] networks.’ The question is not whether terrorists are using the Internet more (we all are) or whether they are exploiting events for their own narrative (they always do), but whether more time online – at the expense of face-to-face contact – will result in more cases of radicalisation. For this, I see little evidence and a strong reason to be sceptical given the current empirical basis.

To conclude, we should be concerned that the material conditions of Covid and society’s response to it could exacerbate radicalisation moving forward. There is a wealth of existing research which suggests that a global upheaval, anxiety, uncertainty, and stressors caused by the forthcoming economic downturn could spark vulnerabilities in potential violent extremists. However, we should be cautious of policymaker and media claims that the mere increase in access and supply of radical content will necessarily lead to more people becoming radicalised, or faster radicalisation trajectories. One might reasonably note that these two premises are not separate; that the combination of the increased vulnerabilities could push people towards new or existing radical communities online. However, given the current empirical research, we would expect these interactions to move into the offline domain before solidifying into violent action. Importantly, as Marone suggests, the forthcoming period will act as a global natural experiment; much of the research presented above is based on the pre-Covid era. If, for example, there is a strong relationship between more time spent online and increased radicalisation, then the data will begin to show this. As always, it will be important to keep an open mind as new trends appear.

Written by Joe Whittaker.

Joe Whittaker is a Research Fellow at ICCT. His research is focused on online radicalisation in the ‘Web 2.0’ era, evaluating whether the increased interactivity offered by social media has led to the Internet playing a greater role than previously thought. Joe is also affiliated with the Cyberterrorism Project in Swansea which, like ICCT, is internationally renowned and takes an interdisciplinary approach to different aspects of Terrorism Studies.

Is fake news the terror super-spreader?

Michael Lyons — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 09:12:34 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Fake news is typically used to inflame, influence, and destabilise political debate, drive culture wars, undermine traditional journalism and to promote appalling ideologies.

Misinformation has been with us for centuries, but social media has greased the rails when it comes to reach and availability. Fake news plays on our hopes and fears. It feeds any confirmation bias we might have, and it reinforces our beliefs and undermines our sense of enquiry or search for the truth.

Fake news can also muddy the waters so that even when facts do get reported accurately such is the onslaught of lies many people just don’t believe them.

If fake news was entirely made up of out-and-out falsehoods, then it might be relatively easy to dismiss, but often it contains a kernel of truth that can be manipulated or skewed to drive the protagonist’s agenda. It’s an insidious virus that pumps toxins into our lives.

Terror organisations
For many terror organisations the Covid pandemic combined with their ability to harness fake news and social media has proved a menacing combination.

A recent report published by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) called ‘Stop the virus of disinformation’ bears careful examination.

Antonia Marie De Meo (UNICRI Director) says in the introduction that ‘terrorist, violent extremist and organized criminal groups are trying to take advantage of the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic to expand their activities and jeopardize the efficacy and credibility of response measures by governments.’

The report divides these groups into far-right extremist organisations, groups associated with Islamic terror and organised criminal gangs.

According to the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, the right-wing extremists are a ‘shifting, complex and overlapping milieu of individuals, groups, and movements (online and offline) espousing different but related ideologies, often linked by hatred and racism toward minorities, xenophobia, islamophobia or anti-Semitism’.

Those groups involved in Middle Eastern terror which include al-Qaida and ISIL are often well organised and adept at using social media to promote their agenda.

The other group of violent non-state actors are comprised of criminal gangs such as the narcos in Mexico and the Cosa Nostra or mafia in Italy.

Strategic objectives
The UN report identified three strategic objectives that are common to all these violent non-state actors.

1. To undermine trust in governments and to reinforce extremist narratives and recruitment strategies.

The pro-ISIL Al-Qitaal Media Center shared a message claiming Covid is a divine punishment that would not affect their believers. This group constantly targets Hindus with hate speech while at the same time seeks to portray the virus as a ‘divine’ matter rather than a genuine health crisis.

The Somali Islamic terror group, Al-Shabaab, also spreads disinformation about the pandemic using it as a justification to continue their terror activities. They claim foreign troops, particularly the African Union Mission in Somalia, have been responsible for deliberately spreading Covid and should therefore be expelled from the country.

2. To increase ‘inspired terrorism’ leading self-radicalised individuals to carry out terror attacks.

There are reported cases of far-right groups explicitly telling their supporters to spread the virus by attending gatherings of racial or religious minorities, by the simple expedient of coughing when among them.

A more extreme example of an ‘Inspired terrorist’ is Timothy Wilson who was killed by the FBI while he was attempting to detonate a bomb at a Kansas City hospital caring for Covid patients. It’s also believed he planned an attack on a US TV network and discussed targeting a presidential candidate.

Thousands of email addresses belonging to staff at the World Health Organisation, the Gates Foundation and other groups combatting Covid were apparently posted online by far-right groups.

3. The promotion of a ‘positive image’ among their followers and potential recruits.

Terror groups often want to promote themselves as an alternative to their country’s government. During the pandemic some have tried to offer people healthcare thus playing on the public’s grievances to their advantage.

In Mexico, drug cartels have distributed aid packages with the criminal gang’s name emblazoned on the boxes. The images were then publicised on social media. A case in point is the Gulf Cartel that shared aid including food and sanitisers in Tamaulipas. Inside each box was a sticker bearing the name of the cartel and the name of its leader.

Extremist tactics
Right-wing groups have become experts at producing internet memes to attract new audiences. This is typically a phrase or image that captures their message and then spreads like wildfire across their social media networks. They often use vicious humour to make antisemitic or Islamophobic insults that appeal to their followers.

Violent non-state actors have become adept at using the services provided by the big media companies. Anyone who uses Facebook, knows the company is always prompting users to find new ‘friends.’ Friends will often share the same ideology or confirmation bias. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all have algorithms that help expand a user’s network. For terror groups these algorithms can help grow and radicalise their legion of recruits.

The groups will try to bypass controls used by the media companies to root out extremism by not using certain key words or phrases and avoiding extremist language. They may also try to appear blander and more legitimate than they are to appeal to a wider audience.

Conspiracy theories
Messages deployed by extremist organisations include conspiracy theories that local governments, religious or ethnic groups, who they oppose, are responsible for creating or disseminating Covid among the local population.

Other messages may allege that governments have secret agendas and are involved in global depopulation. Another popular tactic is to contend that politicians or business leaders are making money out of vaccines and other treatments.

The New Jersey European Heritage Association (NJEHA) deployed stickers with slogans such as ‘Stop coronavirus – deport all illegal aliens’ and ‘Multicultural is the virus’. Other far-right groups adopt antisemitic or Islamophobic slogans depending on their ideology.

In many of these cases the terror groups claim to possess ‘real’ information not available on mainstream media and known only to the initiated or their followers. Typically, they claim that the pandemic will hasten the demise of the government leaving a vacuum that will be filled by their followers with their enemies being eliminated.

Social media bubble
We tend to live in a social media echo chamber where we hear our views repeated back to us on a continual loop. It may sometimes appear that everyone we interact with on social media shares our views. This makes it much more difficult to tell what is fake and what isn’t. Inside our bubble we are selectively exposed to information aligned to our beliefs. This plays into the hands of the violent non-state actors and they use it to their advantage.

Worryingly this situation looks unlikely to change. During the 2020 US presidential election, fake news on Facebook was far more popular than real news.

According to The Washington Post, researchers at New York University and France’s Université Grenoble Alpes found that between August 2020 and January 2021, articles that contained misleading or misinformation received ‘six times as many likes, shares, and interactions as legitimate news articles’.

Dr Rebekah Tromble, Head of the Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics at George Washington University, told the Post: ‘The study helps add to the growing body of evidence that, despite a variety of mitigation efforts, misinformation has found a comfortable home – and an engaged audience – on Facebook’. Facebook responded saying the research doesn’t show the full picture.

Because of the internet we are now able to source information in a manner and speed unparalleled in history. No library has ever allowed us such easy access to so much valuable information.

Unfortunately, there are far darker elements in society who find this a perfect arena for their nefarious activities. Despite the best efforts of governments and on occasions the social media companies themselves, the gangs appear able to spread their messages and recruit followers almost at will. Terror groups are combining fake news, the Covid pandemic and social media to super-spread their abhorrent ideologies.

Written by Jim Preen, Crisis Management Director at YUDU Sentinel.

Jim designs and delivers crisis simulation exercises and is responsible for the company’s written material. Formerly a journalist, he worked at ABC News (US) where he covered the Gulf War and the Bosnian conflict. He won two Emmys while working at ABC.

Read the UNICRI report here.

The Radical Right and Covid-19

Michael Lyons — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 13:46:56 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Radical-right groups across the globe were largely indifferent to Covid-19. Their responses are probably well-known to readers in Europe and North America, but given that these groups are so widespread today – after 9/11 they increasingly moved into the mainstream – their response has been highly fragmented globally. Today, two of the five biggest democracies have a radical-right leader (Brazil and India); the U.S was under Trump only months ago, two EU member states effectively have radical-right governments (Hungary and Poland), and radical-right parties are part of government coalitions in several other countries (such as Switzerland, Bulgaria, and Estonia). Given that the radical-right is a heterogeneous political phenomenon, what draws together such a group, such as the Hungarian Civic Alliance (spearheaded by Victor Orbán) or Modi’s BJP in India? For most scholars, the tie that binds is their core ideology, above all nativism, populism, and authoritarianism. Accordingly, the diverse parties making up the constellation of global radical-right actors do not have a consistent approach to the pandemic.

Yet radical-right groups were quick to find a target to blame for the pandemic in its early stage. Here was another opportunity to rail against immigrants and ethnic minorities. Their discourses were often charged with racist undertones. In Europe, for instance, Muslims were particularly targeted, while in the United States an anti-Chinese and more general anti-Asian sentiment was highlighted. Sadly but unsurprisingly, antisemitic narratives were not uncommon either. More broadly, in Europe, the pandemic offers a chance to bash the EU and globalisation as well. Although parties in a number took this position, ‘they did not use the nativist discourse’ according to Wondreys and Mudde. Many radical-right groups welcomed the idea of border closures and lockdown measures as these, in Klein’s assessment, ‘fit well with the authoritarian tendency of such groups, who often express praise for strong leaders who can ensure socio-political isolation for the purposes of reducing external threats to their totalitarian power’.

It must be underscored, however, that under radical-right groups in power authoritarian measures were not put forward consistently - probably not due to a lack of will, but because most groups did not have enough political power to do so. Orbán was the exception, confounding experts who are still coming to terms with a radical-right Hungary being part of the EU.

Undoubtedly, propaganda has always been a crucial aspect to these groups, and it is interesting to see how their strategy has recently changed in this regard. Here, the pandemic has clearly proven beneficial. People worldwide have spent many behind the screen, while online gaming – which is fertile ground for recruiters – has reached an all-time peak. The prevalence of online extremist channels facilitates the connection of isolated users and the development of closed ‘echo chambers’ of like-minded people in which extremist beliefs can be further reinforced and amplified. Misinformation is the order of the day on many popular sites. According to Eviane Leidig, for instance, an expert on the Indian far-right, this phenomenon seems to be originating on newer platforms like TikTok, which started becoming popular with the radical-right in recent years.

Contrary to the expectations of most political and media commentators, moreover, propaganda efforts have also translated into offline activity. The capacity to mobilise sympathisers during the pandemic and associated lockdowns, when the right to public assembly was severely restricted or forbidden, was scarcely disrupted. This has allowed radical-right groups to present themselves as embedded to communities, acting as defenders of individual freedoms and the national economy. This is true for two far-right groups that have not yet fully made the leap into national politics, Hogar Social in Spain and CasaPound in Italy. Both were physically active during the initial months after the pandemic was declared, wandering around low-income neighbourhoods and handing out food – but to nationals only. New groups also emerged, like Orange Vests in Italy, modelled after the recent protest group in France, the Yellow Vests. Both online and offline, then, radical-right groups been highly visible, appearing to offer a radical solution to the ‘injustices’ in their national polities.

These different promotional campaigns recently put in motion, furthermore, go hand-in-hand with conspiracy theories, which are also becoming noticeably mainstream in various countries. As the leading discourse analyst Ruth Wodak points out, the radical-right has a ‘penchant for conspiracies, scapegoats, and the politics of fear’. The question they try to answer is who is ‘behind all of this’, and there are a range of responses. In this area, it is important to underscore that there is overlap between the disparate radical right, the Anti-Vax movement, QAnon, and other conspiracists. Familiar arguments include that Covid is a plot to decimate the world, 5G radiation is causing Covid, and that Covid have been manufactured by China. Many other conspiracy theories perpetuate antisemitism, one the main tropes for the radical right globally, past and present.

Worryingly, some conspiracy theories pose a security threat offline since – as has been mentioned - are seemingly not put off by lockdown enforcement. For example, in the U.S there are many radical-right groups, albeit usually with smaller audiences, that have joined forces during the pandemic. They espouse similar anti-government views, and reproduce the consistent anti-establishing messaging.

Many take to the streets, sometimes attempting to blend in with massive anti-protest movements and clashing with the police. Even worse, however, is that many of the followers are actively and literally trying to spread the virus to ‘enemies’, to the extent of even committing hate crimes. This shows that, once again, in general, it is all too easy to find a connection between political extremism and conspiracy theories.

Yet it is still early to tell whether radical-right groups have managed to gain in popularity during the pandemic. But that also goes for traditional parties. Contrary to popular belief, radical-right groups have not uniformly shown their incompetence during this period - this is mainly centred on Modi, Bolsonaro and Trump’s poor pandemic response. Yet all the same, on a global scale the radical-right is utilising the present crisis to re-shape ideas about sovereignty, globalisation, democracy, equality, diversity, and even political legitimacy. This is closely linked to attempts at destabilising democracies by committing violent acts and spreading dystopian fantasies of collapse to push their interests – exemplified by 6 January in the US.

Likewise, misinformation and conspiracy theories, so frequent today, especially online, pose a huge challenge to big tech companies such as Facebook or Twitter. Many people, including U.S President Biden, called them out amid the rise of Covid cases due to the new contagious delta variant. Interestingly, their narratives are growing to such an extent that radical-right extremists can now pander to Covid deniers while simultaneously attracting those who believe the virus is real. While radical-right extremism was already increasing prior to the pandemic, it is likely to continue increasing in size and threat.

As sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo argues: “What may be in store is thus something much worse than the populist right of the 2010s: an extreme right using the whole arsenal of the red scare and right-wing authoritarianism to intimidate opponents and defend its interests from demands for meaningful economic redistribution. Though it has been confounded by this crisis, the populist right has not been suppressed. It is just mutating.”

Written by Tomás Francisco Martínez, Marketing and Events Intern at the Centre for Analysis of the Far Right.

Radicalisation and Counter-radicalisation in higher education

Michael Lyons — Tue, 04 May 2021 14:10:08 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Concerns about extremism and radicalisation, and what can be done about them, are very much to the fore in policy circles at present. The government has recently re-started the Independent Review of Prevent (the UK’s counter-radicalisation policy), and work has also begun on an Independent review, led by Lord Walney, the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, into far-right and far-left extremism in the United Kingdom.

During the current pandemic, there have been concerns that online radicalisation has worsened, especially among young people. Whilst the pandemic may have provided a fresh stimulus to extremists of all types, and encouraged the proliferation of conspiratorial rhetoric and thinking, such concerns about the potential for youth involvement in extremism are by no means new. Indeed, young people, in both statutory and higher education, have been the focus of initiatives to spot and prevent radicalisation into violence for over five years, as part of the government’s 'Prevent Duty'.

Introduced in 2015, as part of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (CTSA), the Prevent Duty obliges a range of public institutions, including universities, to have 'due regard to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism'. At the time, and since, observers have been divided over the potential impact of the Prevent Duty. On the one hand, there are those who say the duty is necessary to keep students, and the wider public safe, and on the other, there are those who fear the duty may have negative implications for civil liberties.

The National Union of Students (NUS) has promoted a 'Students not Suspects' campaign that encapsulates two key criticisms of the Prevent Duty: “Communities who are already at the sharpest end of state repression are further targeted through Prevent; Muslim, Black and international students disproportionately find their ideas and beliefs reported to the police yet, as surveillance also extends to lecturers and environmental and political activists, civil liberties are curtailed for us all.”

However, advocates of the duty have argued that it is a necessary and proportional legal framework for a terror threat that is all too real and can point to the increasing focus within Prevent on right-wing extremism. Indeed, the last extremist outfit with a notable core of student members was the fascist group National Action, proscribed as a terrorist organisation in 2016.

Concerns about a so-called 'chilling effect' on free speech in universities have gone beyond the realms of security concerns. Recently, universities have been subject to enhanced political scrutiny regarding their commitment to freedom of speech, amid media reports of the supposed 'no platforming' of speakers with views that are deemed to be unfashionable or controversial, especially those on the right of the political spectrum.

Given that debate around this issue has remained intense and has become increasingly polarised, we wanted to do empirical research that asked has the Prevent Duty impacted on universities in the UK, and what are the implications of this apparently conflicting focus on freedom of speech on the one hand, with the 'due regard' duty on the other?

To ascertain the potential impact of the duty on universities, we examined the publicly available policy documents of over 100 universities in England, and also conducted focus group interviews with students and staff, both those who had taught or studied topics related to terrorism, and control groups who had not.

Our interviews did not produce evidence to support the thesis that the duty is having a 'chilling effect' on free speech. Generally, students seem free to express their views and opinions, even on controversial topics. Where they have reservations about discussing these sensitive matters, it is due to a desire not to offend their colleagues rather than a fear of the eavesdropping state.

Staff, likewise, do not appear to be overly burdened by their Prevent Duty obligations either. Several described the ‘tick box’ nature of the training, and the sense that the policy was being implemented because the universities were obliged to comply with the CTSA, and not out of any zealotry on their part. Ostensibly, the worst fears of those critics of the Prevent Duty do not appear to have materialised – or, at least, not yet.

The Policy documents we analysed helped us understand why the Orwellian nightmare predicted did not come to pass and also help to explain the above-mentioned ‘tick box’ approach observed by staff. Certainly, universities have complied fully with their legal obligations by creating appropriate policies on IT usage and reporting concerns, but for the most part appear to have gone no further than the minimum that is required in the legislation. For example, universities have not been required to proactively promote ‘fundamental British values’ as has been central to Prevent strategies for statutory levels of education, and so they have left the concept well alone.

However, what we did find, is that in order to facilitate this approach of a minimal compliance threshold, universities have adopted their new counter-radicalisation obligations into existing frameworks of adult safeguarding. And it is what we call the 'safeguarding route', for all that it seems an attractive way for universities to package their Prevent Duty obligations, that has had potentially the most problematic effect in a higher education setting.

Radicalisation is framed in the wider PREVENT strategy as something anyone can fall victim to, if certain circumstances pertain at a given time. In this formulation, individuals may be considered 'vulnerable', and the risk assessment matrixes (the 'Extremism Risk Guidance', also known as the 'Vulnerability Assessment Framework') used by PREVENT explicitly identify particular 'vulnerabilities' that could potentially signal someone was at risk of radicalisation into violence.

Universities appear to have enthusiastically embraced the idea of vulnerability and counter-radicalisation as a form of safeguarding. Analysing their policy responses, we saw again and again how this had been identified as a way of protecting institutions’ counter-radicalisation approaches from the charge of targeting particular communities based on ethnicity, religion, or political belief. If everyone is potentially vulnerable to radicalisation, then safeguarding across the board seems a non-discriminatory way to implement the policy.

The problem is such approaches are potentially at odds with the realities of the student experience, and, indeed, the processes by which people may become involved in political violence in the first place. We found that students in particular had absorbed the stereotypes of the lost and lonely, open to brainwashing by extremists and differentiated themselves from it, but the evidence base of risk and behaviours, currently lacking in testing through measures such as control groups, is not there to support that image.

Long-term, we suggest that universities are adding to existing problems that stem from casting adult students as vulnerable subjects. We would also ask them to consider the fall-out of a future violent attack if it was to emerge that an institution dealt with a potentially violent extremist through wellbeing measures and safeguarding.

Written by Catherine McGlynn and Shaun McDaid, from the University of Huddersfield.

Far-Right Extremism in Europe and the United States

Michael Lyons — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 13:07:49 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Historically, there has been little overlap between patterns of right-wing terror in Europe and the United States. This, on its face, is not surprising. The ideological roots of right-wing extremism differ significantly between the two continents. The American far-right has long been composed of an uneasy mix of white supremacists and neo-confederates with a disdain for federal government. By contrast, right-wing extremists in Europe are animated more by the historical remembrance of European fascist regimes and conspiratorial fears of civilisational decline.. White supremacy is certainly an important element of European far-right ideology, but it is distinctive from the American variant in its tangible Nazi roots.

Terrorist indexes for the past decade, however, reflect a curious trend. Not only are the rates of right-wing extremist terror rising sharply in both Europe and the US, but they are rising with startling synchronicity. Authorities are beginning to see the writing on the wall. In early February 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that racially motivated extremists are ‘the top threat we face from domestic violent extremists’. The German Minister for Justice Christine Lambrecht also declared last year that far-right terror ‘is the biggest threat to our democracy right now’.

A Common Narrative
Independent developments on both sides of the Atlantic have helped to trigger the rise in far-right terror threats. The rise of the extreme right in Europe, for example, has been driven in no small part by the Syrian refugee crisis. Two of the most prominent assassinations carried out in the past decade targeted vocally pro-asylum European politicians: UK Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 and local German Christian Democrat representative Walter Lübcke in 2019. In the United States, the election of Barack Obama was, according to FBI reports, a highly successful far-right recruitment tool.

However, one important development which ought not to be overlooked in analysing this trend is the coalescing of both continents’ extreme right discourses around a common ‘Great Replacement’ narrative. While this narrative owes more to European ideological legacies, it is not totally dissimilar to the ‘White Genocide’ theory which arose among US neo-confederates during the reconstruction period. It has also been adapted, in the American case, to fit with current mainstream right-wing anxieties about Southern border migration.

When a far-right terrorist gunned down 23 people at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas in August 2019, he did so, according to his manifesto, as an ‘incentive’ for Hispanic people to leave the country, thus ‘remov[ing] the threat’ of the anti-Republican Hispanic voting bloc.

His writings reflected a preoccupation with ‘cultural and ethnic replacement’ generally and an ‘Hispanic invasion’ specifically.

This case, one of the most notable in recent US history, is illustrative of the broader trend. First devised in its current form by the far-right French writer Renaud Camus, this conspiratorial narrative fundamentally promotes the belief that the white race is set to be wiped out through some combination of immigration, violence and miscegenation, and secondly, that Western elites, usually characterised as ‘globalists’ and ‘Jews’, are intentionally complicit in this process due to their pro-immigrant, multiculturalist commitments.

This narrative also helps justify the use of violence as a response, which is intended to intimidate enemies into halting migration and also to ‘awaken’ the white race to the danger it faces. The ultimate goal is to provoke a race war, meant to resolve the crisis and lead to an ethnically pure homeland. In virtually all recent high-profile cases of far-right terror some permutation of this narrative has been offered as justification by the perpetrator.

A Transcontinental Movement
The convergence of both discourses around this replacement narrative, speaks to the increasingly networked, transcontinental nature of right-wing extremism in the digital age.

Just as ISIS was able to attract foreign fighters from across Europe and the US, so too do groups like the Order of the Nine Angels, The Base, Feuerkrieg and Attomwaffen, boast a truly global membership. We are living in an era where it is not uncommon to see US extremists go to fight in Ukraine or to see German neo-Nazis get weapons training from the Russian Imperial Movement.

In both the US and Europe, far right extremists are open enough about seeing themselves as engaged in a cross-border struggle. Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, who massacred 77 people in 2011, has been cited by countless subsequent attackers the world over as an inspiration. The perpetrator of last February’s shootings in Hanau Germany, which killed 11 people, had, in the past, posted videos on social media, specifically communicating with Americans in the hopes of attaining a global audience.

This desire to be seen speaks further to how the very purpose of far-right terror has been transformed in the digital age. It has been noted by experts that, historically, right-wing terror incidents have tended to be low casualty and highly discriminatory in their choice of targets. Furthermore, it was rare for the perpetrators of these attacks to take credit for them or attempt to explain their motives.

It is only in the past decade or so that American and European right-wing terrorists have taken to writing manifestos and posting evidence of their atrocities in public view online. Their attacks are also increasingly indiscriminate and oriented around producing the largest number of victims possible. Not unlike Jihadists seeking to ignite a worldwide caliphate, the goal of far-right extremism today is thus specifically to capture attention, inspire like-minded extremists and destabilise societies to the greatest extent possible.

The health of this transatlantic movement is therefore intimately connected with the development of social media. Not only do tech platforms have a lot to answer for when it comes to imbuing extremists with a sense of belonging to an international cause, but it encourages them to actively seek out financing and to engineer their acts of violence around the prospect of attaining virality. Furthermore, as has many times been noted, far-right social media echo chambers are a petri-dish in which conspiracy theories and disinformation are nurtured, away from public scrutiny.

A Transcontinental Response
A transcontinental extremist movement of this magnitude requires an equally substantial transcontinental response.

The Biden administration already seems intent on tackling the issue of domestic extremism head on, and there is also an air of hope about bolstering US-EU security cooperation. On the European end, the combined legislation to be implemented in the Digital Services Act and Terrorist Content Online regulations, offer a promising framework for policing the extremist communications and disinformation. In addition to this, at the request of member states, the European Commission recently brought forward the release of its Counter-Terrorism Agenda and it contains a number of interesting proposals for dealing with these problems as well.

Finally, there is the problem of trying to deal with the ideological and rhetorical drift between far-right extremism and hard right mainstream politics in a manner that doesn’t impede on freedom of expression. In both the US and Europe, anti-immigrant talking points used by mainstream politicians veer dangerously close to the views espoused by extremists. Determining the limits of respectable discourse will undoubtedly be a challenge, but if ever there was a year in which to begin holding our representatives accountable it is the one we have just entered.

Contributed by David Ibsen, Executive Director at the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).

CEP is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, international policy organization formed to combat the growing threat from extremist ideologies. Led by a renowned group of former world leaders and diplomats it combats extremism by pressuring financial and material support networks; countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment; and advocating for smart laws, policies, and regulations.

www.counterextremism.com

Selling de-radicalisation to the public

Michael Lyons — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 08:02:15 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

In 2008, Time Magazine listed de-radicalisation as one of ten future revolutions and since then de-radicalisation programmes have proliferated across the world as a measure to counter and prevent terrorism. In short, these programmes have aimed to facilitate the abandonment of radical ideology and to reduce the risk of reoffending of participants upon their release from programmes. De-radicalisation had been referred to as a fad following the development of the first wave of programmes, yet despite early scepticism of whether the programmes were necessary or desirable, de-radicalisation programmes have continued to diffuse across the globe as a solution to deal with terrorism and violent extremism.

The rise of Islamic State in the Middle East and the upsurge in foreign fighters across the world triggered a push to developing de-radicalisation programmes – de-radicalisation has become global. And yet, the global diffusion of de-radicalisation has faced one challenge which has been neglected, namely what the public thinks about these de-radicalisation programmes.

In November 2019, Usman Khan murdered Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones at an offender rehabilitation conference in London. Khan had been released from prison in 2018 on license after serving a sentence for a terrorism offence and having took part in de-radicalisation programmes. The attack led to the effectiveness of de-radicalisation programmes being questioned publicly with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, following another similar incident in February 2020, questioning the extent de-radicalisation can work.

The two cases demonstrated how vulnerable the programmes were to public backlash, which has been a problem in other countries such as Nigeria. It also posed a potential conundrum for de-radicalisation insofar as its PR battle may be lost from the outset because it indicated that no level of success in its own terms, such as recidivism rates or evaluations, may not be enough to be successful in the eyes of the public. The public’s opinion of de-radicalisation programmes is important: community support is necessary to facilitate the important stage of re-integration; the extensive amount of resources given to de-radicalisation programme globally is due to political will and public support or acquiesce. Public opinion of de-radicalisation programmes matters to ensure the programmes are effective, yet these programmes have understandably not been concerned with what the broader public thinks. Yet the backlash that follows cases of recidivism raises the significance of considering how de-radicalisation is perceived and understood.

Attitudes towards de-radicalisation
To provide insight into this issue, we conducted an experimental survey to ascertain whether attitudes toward the rehabilitation and re-integration of terrorist offenders change if the programme includes or excludes de-radicalisation. The research provides indications of the public’s attitudes to de-radicalisation in comparison to a programme with a similar objective but without de-radicalisation, which allows us to isolate the effect of de-radicalisation on the respondents’ attitudes. The research found that a de-radicalisation programme increased support for the rehabilitation and reintegration of terrorist offenders by a low amount (although statistically significant). In other words, a de-radicalisation programme for re-integrating terrorist offenders may be supported more by the public than a programme which refers to disengagement and does not seek to change the offenders’ ideology.

However, we also find that while de-radicalisation increases support, it also decreases perceived effectiveness, leading respondents to feel it makes the country less safe and less likely to reduce the re-offending rate than if the programme excludes de-radicalisation. This paradox indicates that support for de-radicalisation is shaped by factors other than effectiveness and it presents practitioners with a dilemma insofar as the framing of a programme in terms of de-radicalisation may make the goals of the programme seem unrealisable.

From a practitioner perspective, this trade-off between (slightly) increased support and decreased perceived effectiveness might be an opportunity or a constraint. Front-line practitioners may benefit from generating support for a programme among the wider public and at first glance it may appear that our study indicates that de-radicalisation would make people more willing to support the re-integration of foreign fighters. While we need to exercise caution on the generalisability of the findings, we can see this as potentially important where there is resistance to re-integration such as in Nigeria – arguably extensive framing of re-integration in terms of de-radicalisation can increase support at least relative to other measures.

However, it is worth mentioning that while de-radicalisation framing (in the label and content of a programme) may increase support for a re-integration programme among a potential ‘general population’, the impact of this treatment was relatively small and it cannot be assumed that a small increase in support would occur among sections of society most useful in delivering the programme and the most requiring support in order to facilitate reintegration. If de-radicalisation does not increase support among members of society who are integral to the success of re-integration, for example if it decreases support among communities whose co-operation is important, then framing a programme as de-radicalisation could be counter-productive.

Thus, in terms of generating public support, there appears to be a potential advantage in not using a de-radicalisation framing. Instead, framing a policy in terms of disengagement and desistance, while to some extent generating relatively less support, was more consistently supported and raised less opposition. De-radicalisation, on the other hand, polarised opinion. Once again the trade-off is dependent on which audience the practitioner is targeting – increasing general support among the population may be more desirable than the public thinking the programme works, although dropping the language of de-radicalisation when in engaging with target communities may be preferable.

Promoting de-radicalisation
Based on this research and an upcoming book on the media framing of de-radicalisation, several points may be useful in guiding how practitioners approach the PR of de-radicalisation programmes. Firstly, it is reasonable to expect a large amount of support from the public in general, there is no indication it is unpopular (although recently conservative UK newspapers have turned against de-radicalisation).

Secondly, governments tend to be shy about promoting de-radicalisation, leaving the media to pick up more critical voices, whereas newspapers where reporting is overwhelmingly supportive of de-radicalisation are in contexts where there is a clear effort by government, police and military officials to advocate de-radicalisation. Communications resources of de-radicalisation programmes rightfully prioritise reaching target communities however we would recommend that practitioners and governments be more open publically with their activities and to not fear a public backlash – in effect, its the fear of the public backlash and not selling de-radicalisation which makes the generation of public support more challenging.

Thirdly, the story of de-radicalisation needs to be logically consistent and more favourable narratives are better at making the targets of a programme ‘de-radicalisationable‘, emphasising their vulnerability and reformability. Fourthly, de-radicalisation is a hybridised concept – it pulls together rehabilitation and security and if promoted correctly it can mobilise support and resources toward the objectives of rehabilitation and recidivisim reduction.

This article was written by Gordon Clubb, lecturer in International Security at the University of Leeds.

Deradicalisation and the London Bridge attack

Michael Lyons — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 07:32:44 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Steven Greer, Professor of Human Rights at the University of Bristol Law School, reflects upon the recent attack on London Bridge, and the role of deradicalisation programmes

Two central questions are raised by the horrific knife attack by Usman Khan upon some of those attending a criminal rehabilitation workshop at Fishmonger’s Hall, London Bridge on 29 November: how, if at all, could it have been prevented? And how, if at all, could other similar incidents be averted? While there are, regrettably, no entirely reassuring answers to either question, there are, nevertheless, ones we must be content to live with.

Khan, from Stoke-on-Trent, joined the jihadist movement al-Muhajiroun in 2006 at the age of 15 and was arrested for terrorism in 2010. Two years later he was convicted, with several others, of involvement in planning to establish terrorist training camps in Pakistan, and conspiracies to attack several London targets, including the Stock Exchange, the US Embassy, and the home of the then Mayor, Boris Johnson. He was sentenced to an indeterminate term of imprisonment with a recommendation that he spend at least eight years behind bars. This was, however, altered on appeal to a fixed term of 18 years with the standard entitlement to automatic release after half the sentence had been served. Khan is said to have been a model prisoner. By contrast with the majority of his terrorist peers, he willingly cooperated with the available opportunities for deradicalisation and rehabilitation. But it is not entirely clear what precisely these involved. It has also been reported that he applied to join a more intensive programme but was unsuccessful. The reasons have not yet been fully disclosed, but it is said that there is a long waiting list.

In December 2018 Khan was released on licence. In compliance with the relevant legislation, no risk assessment was carried out by the Parole Board. He was required to wear a GPS tag, and was banned from meeting named individuals as well as from having an internet-enabled device. Restrictions upon movement were imposed, including a prohibition on unauthorised trips to London. Supervision was provided by a multi-agency team of police, probation and prison staff, he had to meet his probation officer twice a week, and he was monitored by MI5. Khan also had to participate in the �鶹�� Office’s ‘Desistence and Disengagement Programme’.

‘Desistence’ means ending involvement in terrorism-related activities while ‘disengagement’ involves a fundamental change in mindset coupled with severing connections with relevant ideologies and movements. The programme was launched in October 2016, initially for those on probation following conviction for a terrorism-related offence, those under house arrest suspected of posing a threat to national security, and those subject to conditional repatriation upon their return from foreign conflict zones. Another strand was added in December 2018 for all terrorism-related offences and for those who exhibited extremist behaviour in prison. Although it is well-known that the programme involves regular reviews and individually-tailored psychological, ideological and (in the case of jihadis) theological counselling, the details remain obscure. It has also been reported that Khan visited London with a minder in the summer of 2019. However, because he was officially considered not to be high risk, his trip to the Learning Together seminar on 29 November was approved without this being required. It has been claimed that he acted alone and could have prepared for the attack, which included making a rudimentary fake suicide vest, a mere 24 hours in advance.

Bearing all this in mind, let’s return to the questions raised at the outset. With the benefit of hindsight, the events of 29 November might have been prevented if one or more of several things had happened: the law had not permitted Khan to be automatically released from prison without a formal risk assessment; his minders had refused him permission to attend the seminar and had stopped him from doing so if he had nevertheless tried; he had, alternatively, been permitted to participate but only under effective official supervision; everyone attending the event had been properly searched before gaining admission. We will in fact never know if such precautions have already averted similar tragedies. More scrupulous adherence to at least some of them could also prevent others in future.

But several other things are clear. What happened on London Bridge doesn’t cast any doubt whatever upon the goals of counter terrorist deradicalisation and rehabilitation. These are not merely expressions of limp, liberal ‘do-goodism’ nor do they ‘securitise the Muslim community’ as the anti-Prevent movement claims. Tougher sentences are unlikely to make us safer from such attacks either, not least because those who embark upon them typically expect to die in the process. Long terms of imprisonment without effective attempts to deradicalise and rehabilitate also tend to consolidate radical mindsets and therefore increase the risk of post-release reoffending.

The core element in effectively tackling domestic terrorism of all kinds is responsible and adequately-informed and funded risk management. But no matter how hard we try, it can never be 100 per cent effective. A middle course must, therefore, be steered between two equally false assumptions – that deradicalisation and rehabilitation never work and that, given the right kind of intervention, they never fail. The possibility of incidents involving those who have undergone some form of deradicalisation can, therefore, never be entirely eliminated. But if and when they occur, they don’t necessarily prove that deradicalisation and rehabilitation are doomed projects nor that relevant schemes are seriously deficient. It is, nevertheless, vital – in order that they may be subjected to informed public scrutiny and debate about what might be done to improve them – that much more information is made publicly available about how relevant programmes operate, how they are resourced and how their effectiveness might be assessed. They also need to be properly explained and justified and pervasive myths about them effectively countered.

www.legalresearch.blogs.bris.ac.uk

Restricting radicalisation or forbidding free speech?

Michael Lyons — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 12:16:58 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Amid all of the Brexit drama that is dominating headlines, as well as the ongoing concerns that a No Deal Brexit could put the public at risk, the controversy around Prevent has ebbed and flowed undeterred, but also unmanaged. Counter Terror Business explores the issue

At the start of the year, the then Security Minister Ben Wallace announced that the much-criticised Prevent strategy will be subject to an independent review, consequently led by Lord Carlile. The strategy, which safeguards vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism, is one of the four strands of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, providing a statutory duty for schools, NHS trusts, prisons and local authorities to report concerns about people who may be at risk of turning to extremism. But, it has faced constant opposition since its inception.

Civil liberties and human rights organisations allege that it fosters discrimination against people of Muslim faith or background and inhibits legitimate expression, particularly interfering with children’s rights to education and free expression. Civil rights group Liberty maintain that the Prevent strategy in the UK is the biggest threat to free speech at universities, labelling the tactics of the strategy for monitoring campus activism as having a ‘chilling effect’ on black and Muslim students, provoking self censorship for fear of being labelled extremist.

Such claims founded merit this summer when six writers and activists pulled out of the Bradford Literature Festival, protesting against the event receiving funding from the programme. Bradford-born poet Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, the first to withdraw, claimed that the government strategy treated all Muslims as potential criminals and that she could not endorse community organisations working with counter-extremism funding and support.

Nonetheless, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu has repeatedly stressed that the Prevent programme is the UK’s ‘best chance’ of reducing the threat from terrorism. Recognising that a lack of communication in the earlier years of the Prevent strategy had allowed critics to gain too strong a voice, he said that he and his policing colleagues have since been urging and working for ‘better communication, more transparency and no longer allowing an information vacuum to give people opportunity to attack Prevent without any rebuttal’.

The role of defining extremism
Much of this comes down to how we view extremism, and the definition we apply to the phrase. Extremism is a hotly contested term, and many feel that the government has not clearly outlined what it means by the term. The risk of human rights abuses is significant if clarity of what ‘extremism’ means cannot be reached. It is therefore essential to outline a clear and precise definition of what ‘extremism’ means and who exactly can be considered to be an ‘extremist’, a move that the government has not quite achieved. Alongside Islamaphobia, anti-semiticim and even the word terrorism itself, we have seen usage increase but understanding falter, or at least common understanding fall short.

But when extremism becomes radicisalition, the challenge becomes at what point to you intervene? To respond appropriately to this question, you need to understand what makes someone go from reading content online (the base), to communicating with others on the topic, to organising and planning an event, to actually leaving their house and committing a terrorist act (the tip)? And, of course, the biggest challenge in that is that everything up until the terrorist act itself is not necessarily a crime and is certainly not easy to prove in a court process. The criminal justice process in the UK applies to acts of terrorism – there is no special terrorist court or process – and this means that clear evidence needs to be provided in order to get a conviction. However, much of the information obtained prior to an act of terrorism being carried out is part of a much wider intelligence picture, a significant proportion of which cannot be presented in a trial. Therefore, it becomes extremely challenging to prosecute successfully.

Success or failure?
Returning to Prevent itself, the issue of whether the programme has been successful is a difficult one to judge, depending on which side of the fence you sit. On the one hand, the purpose of Prevent is to support individuals who are especially vulnerable to becoming radicalised and working with sectors and institutions where the risk of radicalisation is assessed to be high. Khuram Butt, the leader of the 2017 London Bridge attack, was involved with the Prevent programme, as was his brother. Likewise, following the attempted bombing on a train at Parsons Green Underground station in September 2017, it was reported that the main suspect, Ahmed Hassan, had been referred to Prevent. Both men were highlighted by the programme as being susceptible to radicalisation.

There is also little in the way of argument that the threat of right wing extremism is growing stronger. AC Neil Basu informed us earlier in the year that nearly a third of terrorist attacks foiled since 2017 were linked to the ideology, and that public help is important to help tackle right wing extremism by seeking help for those vulnerable to radicalisation. Data shows that the number of people referred over concerns about far-right activity increased by 36 per cent last year, accounting for 18 per cent of all referrals. That is the definition of Prevent, whose remit appears ideal to tackle such a threat.

Conversely, if the strategy is taken at its most basic aim, which is to stop people from becoming terrorists, the success of it is marred by the simple fact that both attackers mentioned previously carried out their charges. If Prevent is working, why were two young men, considered to be vulnerable, able to carry out the attacks that they did?

Writing for Counter Terror Business magazine last year, Erika Brady, from the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) at the University of St Andrews, said that ‘you can tell a little more about the success or failure of a counter terrorism strategy by what doesn’t happen’. Describing CONTEST as having ‘many moving parts’, Brady stresses that it would be naive to assume that all of these parts are working at the same level of effectiveness at all times, but concluded that several substantial terror plots have been prevented from taking place each year and that the strategy, as a whole, was working.

Perhaps the ‘hitting the nail on the head’ assessment of the strategy from our interview with Brady was that casting CONTEST, and within that the Prevent programme, in a success-failure dichotomy is an over-simplification of a complex problem. She has said that more research is needed, and reviews are welcome.

Lord Carlile has said that his review is an opportunity to take stock of what Prevent looks like in practice, what’s working and what isn’t, and identify what improvements need to be made to respond to how the threat might change in the future. There is a worry that the independent review will be independent only in name, and, as Lord Carlile previously served the UK's Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation until 2011, such concerns seem warranted. And then, of course, Brexit could change everything…

This article was submitted as part of the media partnership between Counter Terror Business and the Counter Terror Expo.

This topic will be discussed further at World Counter Terror Congress, at CTX in ExCeL London, 19 – 21 May 2020. Don’t miss out, visit www.ctexpo.co.uk to register your interest and be among the first to know when registration goes live!

Managing radicalisation and extremism in prisons

Tommy Newell — Mon, 23 May 2016 15:23:48 +0000

Ideology, extremism, radicalisation

Peter Dawson, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust discusses offender management and the issue of radicalisation in prisons, outlining best practice to help avoid radicalisation, as well as methods to better support vulnerable offenders. I guess most people over a certain age will remember where they were when the second plane hit the twin towers. I was in Brixton prison. I was its deputy governor and stood transfixed in front of the TV in the board room with a few colleagues. For some time, nothing about what was happening seemed real, still less to have any relevance to the role I was performing. But Brixton at the time had the national role of holding prisoners awaiting extradition – something of a historical anomaly to be frank – and amongst the prisoners we were holding on that day were two men accused in the United States of a previous plot to blow up the World Trade Center. My last memory of the day was their faces as they boarded a prison van to go to top security Belmarsh prison under police escort. Were those two men any more dangerous on that evening than they had been in the morning? Or any more or less motivated to escape? I doubt it. But the world had changed. Nearly 15 years on, and it is more or less unthinkable that two men accused of a terrorist plot could be sitting in a not terribly secure Victorian gaol more or less unnoticed by either their captors or their peers. Nowadays, they would be well known, their photographs endlessly re-published and their every experience in prison liable to be broadcast via the Internet from a prisoner’s mobile or a disgruntled member of staff. If they were Muslims, they would also have a good deal more company at Friday prayers. But some things would not be different. They would still expect to live day to day in the company of men convicted of very different crimes and serving a range of sentences – some close to release, some doubting that they will ever be free. They would still live in a community drawn from countless different nationalities and ethnicities, and worship in a room that serves for every religion represented in the prison. They would still interact with staff from many different backgrounds, of very different ages and from both genders. Institutional relationships The British model of prison management is not unique, but it is unusual. It requires not just prison officers, but all those who work in prisons from a wide variety of different agencies, to be comfortable spending their working day surrounded and outnumbered by prisoners. Everyone’s safety rests ultimately on the quality of relationships within the institution and the consent, normally tacit, of the people who live in the prison to accept a degree of authority being vested in those that work in it. Everything that happens in the prison is rooted in those relationships. The safest prison is the one where there is most space for those relationships to form, space created by a regime that �鶹��s prisoners for the whole of the day and most of the evening, and by adequate staffing levels, including teachers, nurses and instructors. Relationships form in the workshops and the prison kitchen, as well as on the landing. They form over time, incrementally, through unacknowledged tests that establish boundaries on both sides, and small tokens of trust. Relationships keep people alive – the officer who notices a change in mood in a prisoner known to self harm, or the quiet tip off about a dispute between prisoners that has got out of hand, with weapons created and ready to use. They produce the trust that allows risks to be taken and managed – a period of temporary release to visit a dying relative, or a special event like a theatre workshop. They produce the intelligence that allows the prison to intervene to protect staff, other prisoners or the public, that points to corruption or to threats of disorder. Relationships sustain the hope that makes a long sentence survivable. Sometimes that will be through the formal process of sentence planning, but often through the day to day experience of interactions that are not defined by imprisonment or by the roles people are playing. It is no coincidence that some of the most effective relationships in prison are formed in the gym or on the sports pitch, where staff and prisoners are collaborating, and deriving mutual pleasure – or frustration – from a shared passion. Old dilemmas So how do we deal with the prisoner who utterly renounces these relationships, to whom they are anathema, even apostasy? This is the dilemma for the long awaited review led by Ian Acheson for the Ministry of Justice. The first, perhaps most important lesson is to remember that this is nothing new. Prisons sometimes wallow in the cliché that they have seen everything before, but in this instance it contains a vital truth. Because not only have British prisons always held terrorists ideologically opposed to the authority under which they are detained, they have also always held people who survive the experience by their resistance to it. We understand the challenge of working with people convicted of the most despicable crimes. The ability to say, truthfully, ‘we will always listen and talk to you regardless of whether you listen and talk to us’ is vital. Making relationships is sometimes the longest of long hauls, but time is always on the prison’s side. The second lesson for me concerns the limits of what we have got used to calling ‘offender management’. The phrase was coined to describe an admirable ambition of working with prisoners to create a plan for a sentence that leads to successful resettlement. But it has sometimes been interpreted too literally, encouraging a view that offenders can literally be ‘managed’, more like an industrial process than a human being. The much more promising approach, happily now well established in official thinking, draws on ‘desistance’ theory to stress the importance of the prisoner’s own agency in any lasting change. So, for example, an approach to offender management founded on desistance theory requires the prisoner to define what a better life for them might look like, and to negotiate the steps towards it. It places trust in the development of a small number of key relationships rather than multiple interventions from dispassionate technicians, and devotes as much attention to the prisoner’s strengths as to their weaknesses. This may sound like pie in the sky for the committed terrorist, and dangerously laissez faire for the prisoner vulnerable to radicalisation. But we know that the alternatives – for example trying to isolate the ideologues completely – do not work. IRA hunger strikers in the 1970s proved that radicalisation does not depend on face to face contact, or personal access to the media. And the peace process ultimately rested on the promise of a life that was demonstrably better without terrorism than with it. The trouble with the long game There are structural obstacles to the success of this ‘long game’ approach, however. It relies on the absolute legitimacy of the state’s authority and the manner in which it is exercised. The state must always occupy the moral heights. So the exceptionally long sentences which have become the norm in this country over the last 10 to 15 years require a re-think. This is certainly not just about sentencing for acts of terror. Young men routinely now receive life sentences with tariffs (the guaranteed period of imprisonment) that exceed the length of time they have been alive. In many cases, a conviction under ‘joint enterprise’ means that they find it hard to accept that they even committed the offence with which they were charged. That creates anger, followed by hopelessness, and fertile ground for recruitment to a cause that denies the legitimacy of the state that passed the sentence. Many of those vulnerable to radicalisation have also experienced a steady accumulation of institutional discrimination. The gross disproportionality in the representation of young black men in the prison population reflects a long series of discretionary decisions rather than a single unfair act, but can only generate expectations of further discrimination when they come to prison. Grounds for optimism Regimes in many prisons are impoverished. A miserable life inside, and few official incentives to use your time constructively, will increase the attractions of an alternative, informal hierarchy of respect and reward. There may be no more difficult operational challenge for the prison service than containing and ultimately eliminating the threat of radicalisation, and it must find its way through in the glare of political and press attention. But a very recent inspection of HMP Full Sutton gives good ground to be optimistic that the skills exist for it to do so, and a successful national policy will ultimately be founded on some familiar tenets. Such a policy should ensure that the principles for a safe prison system hold good – making space for relationships and equipping staff of all disciplines to use that space underpins both resettlement and security success. The state must occupy the moral high ground, modelling just and compassionate ideals. In the long run, it must deliver on the promise of a better life. Institutional injustice, whether in the sentencing framework, entrenched discrimination or an impoverished regime within prison, makes that very much more difficult. It is important to remember that this is a long game. Consistency and determination are at a premium, and the tools that are needed – recruiting and retaining the best people, training and supporting them – need to be delivered throughout. If something appears to be a quick fix, it should be discounted on those grounds alone. L Further information www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk