Rechtsextremismus
The financing of violence-oriented right-wing extremist organizations and actors in Germany is diverse and wide-ranging. However, current, well-founded analyses of financial strategies and sources of income are largely lacking. A "follow the money" approach to uncovering network structures, such as has been established in some cases in the prevention and countering of Islamist extremism and terrorism, does not yet seem to exist in the area of right-wing extremism. Large parts of the right-wing extremist scene, and especially the violence-oriented and transnational milieu, are highly interconnected. These distinctive network structures become visible in various ways. This is where this CEP study comes in, based on analyses by leading experts.
Authors: Alexander Ritzmann, Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, Dr. Thorsten Hindrichs and Maximilian Kreter
The virtual conference organized by CEP on behalf of the German Federal Foreign Office on May 10, 2021, was opened by Simon Herchen, Deputy Head of Division “International Cooperation against Terrorism, Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime” of the German Federal Foreign Office and Ileana Visoiu, Chair of the Council of Europe Committee on Counter-Terrorism. The Council of Europe, namely its Committee on Counter Terrorism (the CDCT), is in the process of a deeper analysis of the issues at the center of the conference. The conference was organized in the framework of Germany’s chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
The report by Kacper Rekawek, PhD focuses on several case studies in the following countries: the Czech Republic (and Slovakia), Hungary, Poland and Ukraine. It is based on interviews with members of the right-wing extremist scenes of these countries, local experts on right-wing extremism and/or paramilitarism and on open-source queries. The report concludes with a set of practical policy recommendations on how the potential security risks highlighted in the report could be mitigated.
This report is the result of the author’s work on a variety of endeavors with the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), namely a 2020-21 research project on radical foreign fighters who fought in the war in Ukraine and a project on the transnational connectivity of the Western extreme right commissioned by the German Federal Foreign Office.
Throughout 2021, CEP, in cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office of Germany will address this issue set in a series of virtual events, bringing together relevant national and multilateral policy stakeholders. These events will be accompanied by a series of short reports, outlining the main operational and policy issues. Building on the discussions with relevant stakeholders, these papers will contain a range of concrete policy recommendations. This overview paper aims to outline the main aspects of these issue areas and demonstrate how these relate to each other.
On the 7th of December 2020, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) hosted a virtual side event, co-sponsored by Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. The event was opened by short statements of each of the co-sponsoring governments highlighting the threat emanating from the financing of right-wing and racially and ethnically motivated terrorism. The main discussion of the event was grouped into two panels.
During the first panel, CEP, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo discussed the current threat landscape emanating from the financial activities of right-wing and racially or ethnically motivated terrorists. During this panel, CEP presented the relevant research findings of its recent report entitled “Violent Right-Wing Extremism and Terrorism – Transnational Connectivity, Definitions, Incidents, Structures and Countermeasures”, which was commissioned by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
During the second panel, representatives from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) outlined ongoing mitigation measures as well as the potential for joint and multilateral actions to counter this threat. The side event concluded with a presentation by the German Federal Ministry of Finance, summarizing the deliberations and highlighting a range of suggestions for further action.
This CEP after action report summarizes the event in a comprehensive fashion
Video recordings of opening remarks and presentations: Playlist
Diese Studie befasst sich mit den transnationalen Verbindungen der gewaltorientierten rechtsextremen Milieus in sechs Ländern: Finnland, Frankreich, Deutschland, Schweden, Vereinigtes Königreich und den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Sie wurde vom Referat „Internationale Zusammenarbeit gegen Terrorismus, Drogenhandel, organisierte Kriminalität und Drogenhandel” des Auswärtigen Amts in Auftrag gegeben. CEP bedankt sich für die konstruktive Unterstützung und das kritische Feedback, die uns das Auswärtige Amt im Laufe des Verfahrens hat zukommen lassen. CEP bedankt sich außerdem bei den anerkannten, externen Experten, die an der vorliegenden Studie mitgewirkt haben und ohne die diese Arbeit nicht mit derselben Detailtiefe zustande gekommen wäre.
Seit Januar 2020 untersucht Dr. Kacper Rekawek im Rahmen eines größeren Projektes von CEP das Phänomen der Foreign Fighters, welche seit 2014 am Konflikt in der Ukraine teilnahmen. In der Hochphase des Konfliktes kämpften auf beiden Seiten rund 17.000 Foreign Fighters, d.h. Kämpfer, welche nicht aus der Ukraine stammen. Die überwiegende Anzahl dieser stammte zwar aus Russland, knapp 1000 kamen jedoch aus der Europäischen Union und den USA. Damit lief diese wenig beachtete Welle von ausreisenden Kämpfern parallel zu der Reisewelle extremistisch islamistischer Individuen, welche sich zum gleichen Zeitpunkt dem Islamischen Staat (ISIL) in Syrien und dem Irak anschlossen.
Viele der europäischen Foreign Fighters in der Ukraine waren schon vor ihrer Ausreisereise Teil rechtsradikaler Netzwerke. Der aktuelle Bericht von Dr. Rekawek gibt eine erste Zusammenfassung seiner Forschungsarbeit und analysiert die biographischen und ideologischen Hintergründe dieser Kämpfer. Auf dieser Grundlage analysiert der Bericht inwieweit diese Kämpfer weiterhin ein Sicherheitsrisiko sowohl für die innere Sicherheit in der Ukraine als auch für Europa darstellen und zeigt auf, welche weitergehenden Herausforderungen dieser Personenkreis für die Sicherheitsbehörden darstellt.
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