IMPACT Europe news digest [#8]
Welcome to the eighth instalment of the IMPACT Europe news digest. Through this series, the IMPACT Europe team will endeavour to present you with a selection of news, commentaries, journals articles and web materials relating to research and policy developments touching on the subject matters underpinning IMPACT Europe’s project’s mission. To receive the latest updates on IMPACT Europe’s research, dissemination and outreach activities you can follow our Twitter account (@impacteurope) or sign up to our quarterly newsletter through our homepage.
NEWS & PUBLICATIONS
The Impact of Counter-Narratives: Insights from a year-long cross-platform pilot study of counter-narrative curation, targeting, evaluation and impact
Institute for Strategic Dialogue; Against Violent Extremism
In October 2015, the Against Violent Extremism network, in partnership with Jigsaw, deployed three pilot social media campaigns aiming to counter the damaging messages disseminated online by violent extremist propaganda. These are ‘Average Mohamed,’ ‘ExitUSA,’ and ‘Harakat-ut-Taleem,’ all of which target different audiences and employ different approaches. This report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue describes the development and deployment of the three campaigns, evaluating the effectiveness of the different strategies pursued and content deployed. Based on findings emerging from this evaluation, the authors offer several specific and actionable recommendations to campaigners looking to develop effective counter-narratives online. Finally, the authors provide some initial ideas for the development of a framework through which to better evaluate and improve counter-narrative campaigning.
Civil Liberties Committee MEPs endorse plan to check all EU citizens at external borders
Justice and Home Affairs – Press release
On 21 June, the Civil Liberties Committee approved a proposal which would amend the current Schengen Borders Code by introducing more thorough security checks at all EU external air, sea and land borders. The identities of all EU citizens, as well as family members with third-party nationalities, would be checked against EU-wide and national internal security databases, as well as databases listing lost or stolen travel documents, in order to prevent individuals who might pose a security risk from entering or leaving the EU.
Commission adopts proposal to strengthen transparency rules to tackle terrorism financing, tax avoidance and money laundering
European Commission – Press release
Following this February’s Action plan for strengthening the fight against terrorist financing, on 5 July the European Commission adopted a proposal for stricter transparency rules. These rules are designed to obstruct terrorist financing and help to tackle money laundering and tax avoidance. The proposal represents the first step in implementing the Action plan, and has also been developed in the context of a broader drive to boost tax transparency and tackle tax abuse across the Union.
Outline for Interventions of Deradicalisation from Involvement of Violent Extremism
Institute for Strategic Dialogue
Young people are disproportionately vulnerable to and affected by the ideologies of violent extremism. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue have launched ‘Extreme Dialogue’ in the UK, an initiative which offers free educational resources to facilitate conversations about extremism between young people, their families and their teachers. It is hoped that these resources will help to inspire open dialogue, debate and critical thinking and will counter the simple but powerful messages that violent extremists use to exploit the vulnerabilities of young people.
Handbook: Voices of victims of terrorism
Radicalisation Awareness Network
This handbook, recently published by the RAN Working Group Voice of Victims of Terrorism (VVT), is a compilation of the experiences shared over the course of the VVT working group meetings between 2012 and 2015. Through this handbook, the VVT seeks to disseminate shared experiences from victims of terrorism, including those collected by victims’ associations, as well as to present a set of recommendations for EU institutions and member states. In particular, member states and the European Commission are encouraged to disseminate and embed more effectively the testimonies of victims of terrorism as part of a broader public CVE/PVE efforts and conversations on the impact of violent extremism.
UPCOMING EVENTS AND CONFERENCES
- Addressing Radical Ideologies and Violent Extremism: The Role of Research
European Commission, Directorate General for Research and Innovation
Brussels, Belgium, 26 September 2016
[Link]
- Alliance of European cities against violent extremism
Conference co-organised by the European Forum for Urban Security, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and the City of Rotterdam
Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 9 November 2016
[Link]
[Image shared by Anders Lejczak via Flickr; CC BY 2.0]