Security services in Europe have neglected the kind of right-wing extremism which inspired Norway’s Anders Behring Breivik to commit mass murder, a UK-based rights group has warned.
“Post-911, all major authorities have themselves in the EU focused on the direct threat of Islamic terrorism while they took their eye off the ball on the radicalisation of Europeans,” Daniel Hodges, a campaigner for Hope Not Hate, a London-based NGO, told EUobserver on Monday (16 April).
“EU authorities have been lagging on radicalisation in Europe. They’ve been slow to grasp the power of the Internet and social media that encourages and helps co-ordinate the activities of the groups,” he added.
Hope Not Hate in a report out on Sunday said the ‘counter-jihad’ movement has become the new face of the far right in Europe and North America. The survey identifies some 300 disparate groups and individuals behind the trend.
Many of them say Muslims are a threat to Western cultural identity or values because old-fashioned racist language is no longer acceptable in mainstream politics and media. They also profess sympathy toward gay people and Jews.
The conservative American commentator, David Horowitz, is possibly the number one counter-jihad personality. His Freedom Centre think tank is a financial backer of many of the groups, the report says. He has also organised fund-raising events for Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who recently hit the headlines by launching a website where people can denounce immigrants who work on the black market.
Money is being pumped in from fundamentalist Christian organisations as well. “There is a link between these groups and the religious fundamentalist movement in the US and in Europe. A lot of the funding for these groups come from these religious movements in Europe,” Hodges explained.
Nikolaj Nielsen