far-right extremism

September 06, 2024

CounterPoint Brief: EU Arrests Members of Newly-Designated Terrorist Group The Base

This week saw the arrests of five young men in Europe—two in Italy and three in the Netherlands, including a 16-year-old boy, who stand accused of membership in “The Base”—a neo-Nazi white supremacist network that was designated as a terrorist group...

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"The clubs are ‘arguably the largest and fastest growing violent extreme-right network’, and are spreading across the UK, according to the insights provided to Metro.co.uk by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP)."

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September 2, 2024
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"Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst at the Counter Extremism Project who specializes in monitoring the far right, confirmed he had seen the same Terrorgram-linked channel, the War Room Posse.

'It is still a bit early to tell what Terrorgram channels will say specifically before the election,” said Fisher-Birch, adding that the “channels are also continuing to share manuals that promote lone actor attacks on people of color, LGBTQ people, Muslims, Jews, government officials and others, as well as encourage attacks on infrastructure'."

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August 20, 2024
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"The Counter Extremism Project has also warned of the threat from 'active clubs', which were created in the United States in 2020 to 'make fascism fun'."

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August 12, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "he spasm of violent disorder that has gripped England and Northern Ireland over the last week has thrown the issue of prison capability back into the spotlight. Before the brutal murders of three children in Southport, it looked just about possible for our national jail service, running at 99% capacity, to stagger over the line in September when the reduction in time served by the incoming government from 50% to 40% took hold and gave some respite."

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August 9, 2024
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Former prison governor Ian Acheson, an adviser to think tank the Counter Extremism Project, told the BBC he was “completely against” terrorism charges being considered. He said: 'I think giving these people an ideological justification for what they’ve done is profoundly dangerous. These are common criminals. These are people who’ve tried to incinerate human beings in hotels. They have looted vape shops, they’ve burned down libraries. There’s no ideological coherence behind any of that. 'These are common thugs, and they need to be treated as such, as they were back in 2011, and they need to be given exemplary sentences, because there’s a lot of debate to be had about the societal drivers for all of this, but for now the state has to get back in control.'”

Date
August 7, 2024
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“... Former prison governor Ian Acheson, an adviser to think tank the Counter Extremism Project, told the BBC he was "completely against" terrorism charges being considered. He said: "I think giving these people an ideological justification for what they've done is profoundly dangerous. These are common criminals. These are people who've tried to incinerate human beings in hotels. They have looted vape shops, they've burned down libraries. There's no ideological coherence behind any of that. "These are common thugs, and they need to be treated as such, as they were back in 2011, and they need to be given exemplary sentences, because there's a lot of debate to be had about the societal drivers for all of this, but for now the state has to get back in control.”

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August 7, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "The last comparable period of civil disorder in this country happened in 2011. Then as now, the courts acted with speed and severity to try to quell five days of rioting in multiple locations, which traumatised the nation, caused hundreds of millions in damage and injured more than three hundred officers. The head of the Crown Prosecution Service at the time was one Keir Starmer. Now, as prime minister, he seeks again to confront the horrific street violence with the same apparent energy and determination. But can a punitive response work to stop violence that has at times threatened to overwhelm the police? Times have changed, and our criminal justice system is in tatters."

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August 5, 2024
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