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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.
Islamist Extremism
Gradualists to Jihadists – Islamist Narratives in the West
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, 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 a webinar on December 10. He also facilitated a webinar on 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 former Charlie Hebdo columnist.
Central and Eastern European Activities of the Muslim Brotherhood: Mapping The Ikhwan’s Presence In The Region
The Muslim Brotherhood 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, 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 25 webinar.
CEE Activities of the Muslim Brotherhood: Czech Republic, Poland, and Serbia
The presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in CEE has remained an 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, focused on the specific characteristics of these three countries and was launched with a webinar 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
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 the Muslim Brotherhood in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) highlights Brotherhood activities in North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The report’s findings, presented during a webinar on December 8, not only display 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
In November, CEP released its report, Violent Right-Wing Extremism – Transnational Connectivity, Definitions, Incidents, Structures and Countermeasures, which was commissioned by the German Federal Foreign Office. The report is also available in German. 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.
Career Break or New Career? Extremist Foreign Fighters in Ukraine
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, 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 a webinar hosted by CEP and the Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security (BIGS).
CEP Berlin conducted a new study 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 both English and German, 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.
CEP Study: Terrorism Financing and Social Media Platforms
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, 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
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. 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 29 webinar. Media coverage: Knowable Magazine and The Washington Post.
Policy and Analysis
CEP-EPC Report Calls for Pan-EU Policy for Return of Foreign Terrorist Fighters
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. 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, Daily Express, Euractiv.
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 a webinar on the risk of cryptocurrencies 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. 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, The Sun, CoinList, News Chastin, Decrypt.
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