The Myth of Islamist "Lone Wolf"

International Policy Briefs - Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2017

UNESCO, 2017

2019

The unofficial number of Turkish Jews in Turkey is estimated at 10,000 Jews. The community itself reports a higher number which is unlikely to be correct. A slow but steady wave of emigration from Turkey has been part of Jewish community's life, thus the community is shrinking with each passing year. Most of the Jews have immigrated to Israel but some left to the U.S. and Canada. About 2,000 Turkish Jews have applied for Portuguese citizenship after Portugal’s government decided to grant nationality to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Portugal and Spain in the 15th century.203 The nationalist and Islamist push of the AKP (Justice and Development Party), the party of President Erdoğan, worries the small Turkish Jewish community, mainly concentrated in Istanbul. With the rise of violence and antisemitism, many are considering leaving the country.204 The community faces antisemitic manifestations on an almost daily basis in the media, especially by nationalist and Islamist national and local newspapers such as Yeni Akit and Milli Gazete and especially when Israel is on the news. The consequences of the 2016 coup attempt caused fears amongst the Jewish community, and the deterioration of the Turkish economy strengthened the unstable feeling and push Jews out of Turkey. With a most powerful Erdoğan, and especially due to his rough assertions against Israel and his antisemitic approach, the position of the average Turkish Jew is complicated. It should be stressed that Erdoğan is definitely the main reason for the growing antisemitism in Turkey. Polls clearly confirm this assertion, and the legitimacy that anti-Israel sentiments receive as well as the support antisemitic journalists and columnists receive from the current government further reinforces it.

Amicus Curiae, 2020

Article 10(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), freedom of expression, is incorporated into UK law. With the growing Islamist terror threat after 9/11, particularly threatening European security, the Council of Europe introduced the Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (CPT), 2005. One of the Articles within the Convention, Article 5, obliges states to outlaw ‘public provocation to commit a terrorist offence’. Drawing on its obligations in the CPT, the UK enacted s.1 of the Terrorism Act 2006: ‘encouragement of terrorism’. But in implementing its duties, the UK went further. There are very real concerns, therefore, about the effects of this legislation on freedom of expression. The test for interpreting breaches of Article 10 is ‘proportionality’. Comparatively, in America there is a much stronger test than proportionality, ‘strict scrutiny’, in assessing limits to terror speech. But in the age of Islamism, together with the speed, ease and little cost incurred in sharing terror speech online, should there not be a reappraisal of American law? The author is based in the UK. But the UK’s approach to limiting terror speech is arguably too intrusive of freedom of expression. This paper, therefore, proposes a compromise approach between the two jurisdictions.

Exploiting Cyberspace Rather than removing violent extremist content or trying to undercut the demand for it, a different approach for dealing with online radicalization is to take full advantage of violent extremists’ and terrorists’ presence in cyberspace and make maximum use of the information they are sharing with others. This information can be used to gain strategic intelligence on terrorist groups’ intentions and networks, on tactical intelligence on terrorist operations and the people who are involved in them, and on evidence that can be used in prosecutions.

a study of those Muslims who believe that in this generation they will create a global Caliphate not only in former Dar al Islam, but in current Dar al Harb. This includes both those who conduct Jihad (kinetic war) and Da'wa (cognitive war). Analyzing these beliefs as apocalyptic (now) and millennial (world transforming/salvific) one can gain important insights into the dynamics of the Caliphater movement.

in Elizabeth Humphrys, Guy Rundle and Tad Tietze (eds), On Utøya: Anders Breivik, Right Terror, Racism and Europe, Elguta Press: London , 2011

[Working Paper]: I argue that cyber-recruitment by Jihadist groups is effective because it is a strategy which targets vulnerable individuals seeking community and identity. Cyber-recruitment is not as common a phenomenon as one may think. Indeed, though there are incidences of individuals being intercepted while making plans to travel overseas to fight with IS, of actually making the trip, or of being incited by Jihadist groups to carry out domestic attacks, cyber-recruitment does not constitute an integral part of Jihadist groups’ number of recruits. However, this phenomenon has occurred, and thus warrants attention. The goal of this article is to chronicle the history of Jihadist groups’ presence on the web, and to understand why cyber-recruitment works. In the first section, I survey the ways in which Jihadist groups have utilized the web, which include communication, training, and recruitment. In the second section, I present three cases of individuals who were seduced by Jihadist rhetoric. In the third section, I argue that cyber-recruitment is an effective strategy because it targets vulnerable individuals who are seeking community and an identity. I further argue that aggravating factors include Islamophobia, anti-Neoliberalism, and frustration against the indiscriminate violence caused by Western military interventions. In the final section, I survey the policies of major online communication platforms regarding hate speech.

ASPI Counter-terrorism Yearbook 2019; Page 41-49, 2019

See more at https://www.aspi.org.au/report/counterterrorism-yearbook-2019