Individuals and groups adhering to militant Islamism, a political ideology
underpinned by a strict and literalist interpretation of religion, have cla


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CEP 2020

Original Research From The Counter Extremism Project

 

In 2020, the Counter Extremism Project produced original research exploring
key counter-terrorism issues. Please help us continue this important work by
supporting CEP today.
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR CEP BY DONATING TODAY
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Islamist Extremism

 

Gradualists to Jihadists – Islamist Narratives in the West
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Individuals and groups adhering to militant Islamism, a political ideology
underpinned by a strict and literalist interpretation of religion, have claimed
tens of thousands of lives around the world. This paper considers the four main
narratives consistently deployed by both “non-violent” and violent Islamist
(Jihadist) movements: (1) Enmity for the West, (2) An Islamic State, (3) War on
Islam, and (4) Communities Under Siege. While accepting the religious
underpinnings of Islamist and Jihadist ideology,Gradualists to Jihadists –
Islamist Narratives in the West
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, argues that these narratives are inherently political and that Islamism
should be treated in a policy sense as a political ideology like any other.
Study author, CEP London-based Advisor Liam Duffy, also notes that because the
narratives are commonly used by both violent and non-violent Islamist groups,
the language of jihadists has entered the mainstream and been introduced to
much wider audiences than would otherwise be possible, presenting a
radicalization risk. Duffy presented his findings during awebinar
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December 14 to further discuss Islamist movements in Europe with Sir John
Jenkins, former U.K. ambassador to Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Saudi Arabia who led
the U.K. government review into the Muslim Brotherhood, and Caroline Fourest,
French commentator, writer, director, and formerCharlie Hebdo columnist.

 

Central and Eastern European Activities of the Muslim Brotherhood: Mapping The
Ikhwan’s Presence In The Region
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The Muslim Brotherhood <[link removed]>
can be many things to different observers. Some see the Muslim Brotherhood a
terrorist organization, while others accept it as a modernist movement. The
group has constantly evolved and expanded across multiple countries, taking on
various forms. While its Western European activities have been thoroughly
explored in academic literature, uncovering the group’s on-the-ground presence
in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has been lacking. In their report,CEE
Activities Of The Muslim Brotherhood: Mapping The Ikhwan’s Presence In The
Region
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, CEP and Bratislava-based think tank GLOBSEC highlight the activities of the
group in a number of CEE countries divided into clusters according to types of
environments and based on the presence of three groups: converts, expatriates,
and autochthonous communities. The report was previewed during a May 25webinar
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CEE Activities of the Muslim Brotherhood: Czech Republic, Poland, and Serbia
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The presence of the Muslim Brotherhood
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understudied issue due to a lack of available open data. CEP and GLOBSEC are
contributing to a wider understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood’s
organizational structures and activities in the CEE region. This second report,
Activities of the Muslim Brotherhood: Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia
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, focused on the specific characteristics of these three countries and was
launched with awebinar <[link removed]> on
September 23. The report found that due to the developments in recent years, in
particular the terrorist attacks in Europe and anti-Muslim sentiment to the
so-called “refugee crisis,” the Czech and Polish Muslim groups studied have
decreased their activities and have started looking more inward. On the other
hand, Serbian Muslim groups have maintained good relations with their
government.

 

CEE Activities of the Muslim Brotherhood – Final Report: North Macedonia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, & Conclusions for the Region
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Radical political Islamism has received increasing attention, especially
following the recent terror attacks in Austria and France and the subsequent
crackdown aimed at curtailing the ideology and preventing future attacks. The
third CEP-GLOBSEC report on theMuslim Brotherhood
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Europe (CEE) highlights Brotherhood activities in North Macedonia and Bosnia
and Herzegovina. The report’s findings, presented during awebinar
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the complex nature of the reality in the countries at the center of this
project, but also suggests the direction of future research. One area to
explore would be the relationship between North Macedonian based humanitarian
associations and Turkish-backed youth programs, which provide scholarships and
other assistance.

Far-Right Extremism

CEP Report Examines Transnational Violent Extreme Right-Wing (XRW) Movement
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In November, CEP released its report, Violent Right-Wing Extremism –
Transnational Connectivity, Definitions, Incidents, Structures and
Countermeasures
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, which was commissioned by the German Federal Foreign Office. The report is
also available inGerman
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. It focuses on the rise and metastasis of the violent extreme right-wing (XRW)
threat and analyzes its growing transnational connectivity between 2015-2020.
The study centers on the transnational connections of the violent XRW milieus
in six countries: Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the
United States. The movement is not unified in one hierarchical structure but
embraces a “divided we stand” approach. Its members include individuals,
groups, organizations, and networks, as well as political parties. National
violent XRW scenes are transnationally linked through apocalyptic narratives
such as the “great replacement,” “white genocide,” and “Day X”. Transnationally
oriented violent XRW propagandists argue that the “white race” can only be
saved if all violent XRW abandon parochial national differences and divisions
in order to work and fight together. Media coverage:Die Welt
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.  



Career Break or New Career? Extremist Foreign Fighters in Ukraine
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CEP published a new report on May 4 that analyzes the profiles of extreme
right-wing Western foreign fighters who joined the conflict in the Ukraine. The
report, Career Break or New Career? Extremist Foreign Fighters in Ukraine
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, aims to explain who these fighters are, where they come from, what they are
likely to do next, and whether they pose a security threat. The study was
authored by Kacper Rekawek, PhD, an affiliated researcher at CEP and an
associate fellow at Bratislava, Slovakia-based think tank GLOBSEC. Rekawek
interviewed 18 foreign fighters of seven nationalities who took part in the
Ukrainian conflict on either side, along with Ukrainian experts, former
officials, academics, and journalists who encountered these fighters. Although
these fighters share the same ideology, their impetus for engaging in combat in
Ukraine varied. The report was presented at awebinar
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Institute for Society and Security (BIGS).

 

Tech and Terrorism

CEP Policy Paper – Recommendations for the amendment of the German Network
Enforcement Act (NetzDG) and Investigation into the actual blocking and removal
processes of YouTube, Facebook and Instagram
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CEP Berlin conducted a new study
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between January 31 and February 14 to test big tech’s compliance with
Germany’s 2018 NetzDG online content moderation law. The law as written
requires online platforms with at least two million registered users to remove
“manifestly illegal” content within 24 hours only after it has been reported by
users. CEP’s study, released in March and available in bothEnglish
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andGerman
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, revealed that YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram removed a mere 43.5 percent of
clearly extremist and terrorist content, even after that material was reported
for its illegal nature under the NetzDG law. Of those companies studied,
YouTube has been least compliant with the law’s requirements, blocking only 35
percent of the 80 videos that were reported and should have been blocked.
Facebook and Instagram deleted or blocked all of the flagged content, but
Facebook did not remove any content that was explicitly not flagged—even though
that content contained the same reported illegal symbols. It is clear that
passive and reactive approaches to removal of illegal content are insufficient.
CEP’s findings strongly show that the “notice and takedown” method for removing
illegal content can only be effective if platforms are being searched
continuously and systemically for such material. Media coverage:Die Welt
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.

 

CEP Study: Terrorism Financing and Social Media Platforms
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The misuse of social media and other Internet services by terrorist
organizations, including for financing activities, continues to be a vexing and
dangerous modern phenomenon. In January and March 2020, CEP conducted a study
to evaluate the current defense mechanisms of large social media platforms
against the misuse of their services by financiers of international terrorism
or for the financing of terrorism. The study revealed that major financiers of
al-Qaeda and ISIS, as identified by the U.N. Security Council, are able to
maintain profiles on large platforms. The report,CEP Study: Terrorism Financing
and Social Media Platforms
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, recommended that the tech industry proactively search for and remove profiles
and accounts of terror financiers on their platforms and update their community
standards and increase awareness of terrorism financing risks among their
internal content monitoring and moderation teams.

 

On the Threat of Deep Fakes to Democracy and Society
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For years, the influence of fake news and the manipulation of public and
political perception has been a threat to political systems. Today, fake news
is often supported by so-called deep fakes—seemingly real synthesized videos of
any kind of content. Because of fundamental advances in software design,
significant technical skills to produce such deep fakes are no longer
necessary, transferring the ability to create them from specialists to a wide
range of actors. This increases the risk of their misuse and challenges our
democratic societies to find political solutions to fight this growing threat.
In June, CEP, in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), released
a study,On the Threat of Deep Fakes to Democracy and Society
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. The authors, CEP Senior Advisor Dr. Hany Farid, a professor at the University
of California, Berkeley, and the world’s foremost authority on digital
forensics, and Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, discussed the study
and ways to confront the problem at a June 29webinar
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Magazine
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andThe Washington Post
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.

 

Policy and Analysis


 

CEP-EPC Report Calls for Pan-EU Policy for Return of Foreign Terrorist Fighters

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On November 9, CEP and the European Policy Centre (EPC) held a webinar and
launched their collaborative publication,Marching home? Why repatriating
foreign terrorist fighters is a pan-European priority
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. The report examines the multiple challenges of repatriating foreign terrorist
fighters (FTFs) and the differing approaches taken by France, Germany, the
United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and Kosovo towards hundreds of their
citizens who joined ISIS and are now languishing in overcrowded, insecure, and
dangerous prisons and refugee camps in Syria and Iraq. The report’s authors,
CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson and EPC Senior Policy Analyst Amanda Paul, point
out the national security, legal, and moral implications of governments’
‘bunker mentality’ approach and lay out a concrete set of recommendations for
an operational response to FTFs that ensures public safety, accountability
through the criminal justice system, and rehabilitation. Media coverage:The
Times
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Daily Express
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Euractiv
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.

 

Cryptocurrencies as Threats to Public Security and Counter-Terrorism: Risk
Analysis and Regulatory Challenges
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The rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies poses new challenges for the
fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT). There is a
growing risk that terrorist financiers may evade state surveillance and tap
into new sources of funding. In response, both the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF) as well as the European Union have been developing the regulatory
framework for this new asset class. CEP and Berlin Risk, a specialized business
and political risk consultancy based in Berlin, cooperated on this subject for
the past year as part of CEP’s workstream on CFT and new technologies. On June
10, CEP and Berlin Risk conducted awebinar
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being misused for the financing of terrorism and released a new report,
Cryptocurrencies as Threats to Public Security and Counter-Terrorism: Risk
Analysis and Regulatory Challenges
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. The report makes a series of recommendations aimed at increasing the
effectiveness of expected regulatory measures, resulting in an overall
strengthening of the European CFT defenses. Media Coverage:The National
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,The Sun
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,CoinList
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,News Chastin
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,Decrypt
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.


 

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