News and Media

CEP released a new report, the Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestinian Territories. Despite Hamas's attempts to erase its connections to the worldwide Islamist group, Hamas remains indelibly a Muslim Brotherhood institution, as its new policy document does not replace its 1988 charter, which declares Hamas to be “one of the wings of the Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine.”

A new CEP resource compares the terms of service of major Internet companies and social media platforms. CEP found that while most companies’ terms of service prohibit content that promotes terror and violence, the continuing scourge of radicalization materials online clearly demonstrates that in most cases, insufficient resources are being allocated to ensure enforcement of the policies.

CEP said today that cosmetic policy language announced by Hamas does not translate to changes in the group’s violent and extremist ideology. At a Doha, Qatar press conference, Hamas released the policy document, which does not replace its 1988 charter. Moreover, the new language has no bearing on Hamas’s commitment to violent “armed resistance” against Israel, and the “liberation” of all of Palestine “from the river to the sea.”

As Pope Francis prepares for a peace-building trip to Egypt, CEP released a new report detailing the extent of ISIS’s ongoing campaign of genocidal violence and incendiary rhetoric against Muslims, Yazidis , Christians, and Mandaeans , and other religious minorities.

Rivals ISIS and al-Qaeda, are reportedly discussing forging an alliance. Although they split in 2014 and have been competing since, CEP notes that their shared origins in the Muslim Brotherhood and its ideology based on the writings of Sayyid Qutb, could allow leaders of the two groups to overcome their differences and potentially join forces. Before ascending to the highest positions of ISIS and al-Qaeda, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Ayman al-Zawahiri belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, which served—as it does today—as a bridge between young Islamists and more violent jihadist groups.

The April 9 ISIS bombings at two Coptic Christian churches in Egypt that killed 49 people fit a grisly pattern of extremists targeting Christian and Jewish sites, CEP noted, in releasing its new analysis report, Terror Targets in the West: Where and Why. The report includes detailed case studies of al-Qaeda and ISIS attacks and their justifications for choosing their targets.

CEP today released a statement in response to a vehicular attack in downtown Stockholm, Sweden, and a new resource on the use of cars and trucks as weapons of terrorism. The resource notes that attacks using vehicles were carried out beginning in 2006 in London, Quebec, Dijon, Nantes , Jerusalem, and North Carolina and terror groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hamas have called for or claimed responsibility for them.

CEP and the European Foundation for Democracy (EFD), at an event held in Berlin, Germany, today announced the publication of a handbook designed to help German educators understand and properly respond to difficult and sensitive cultural and religious issues, including recognizing the signs of radicalisation.

CEP strongly condemned today's terror attack carried out on the St. Petersburg Metro that claimed the lives of at least 10 people. The CEP statement read in part, "We must continue to be diligent and relentless in our fight to confront radicalization in order to ultimately root out extremism and terrorism."

London terrorist Khalid Masood—who killed four people and wounded dozens in London March 22—lived in Luton , a town known as a bastion of Islamic and far-right extremism. In its newest report, CEP profiles 10 areas in Europe, Australia, and North America that have become synonymous with right-wing or Islamic extremism.