In this mailing: Soeren Kern: Britain: Bid to Crack Down on Islamic Extremism Faces Resistance Burak Bekdil: Turkey Cracks Down on the Free Press Britain: Bid to Crack Down on Islamic Extremism Faces Resistance by Soeren Kern  •  June 17, 2015 at 5:00 am "Islamist propaganda is so potent that it is influencing children as young as five... If I feel the need to be extra vigilant [with my own children], then I think you need to feel the need to be extra vigilant." — Mak Chishty, Britain's most senior Muslim police officer. "It is very noticeable that the main Islamist groups are not really up in arms about this. They want it, because it will feed the narrative of grievance and victimhood they love. They will be able to use it to say, look, we told you so." — Haras Rafiq, Director of the Quilliam Foundation. "You can't protect democracy by undermining democracy... It is a battle of ideas and we have to defeat these ideas by argument, not by banning even having the debate. What we need, far more than any new law, is a counter-argument and a policy which can inspire [Muslim] society to defeat extremist ideas." — Rashad Ali, counter-extremism specialist at the Home Office's de-radicalization program. "As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation, and bring our country together. That means actively promoting certain values... And it means confronting head-on the poisonous Islamist extremist ideology. Whether they are violent in their means or not, we must make it impossible for the extremists to succeed." — British Prime Minister David Cameron. Nasser Muthana (center) is one of over 700 British Muslims who have travelled to Syria and Iraq to wage jihad. He is pictured speaking in an English-language ISIS recruitment video. Britain is facing an "unprecedented" threat from hundreds of battle-hardened jihadists who have been trained in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, according to MI5, the domestic counter-intelligence and security agency. It warns that are now more Britons trained in terrorism than at any point in recent memory. More than 700 Britons are believed to have travelled to Syria and Iraq, according to British authorities. Over half of these Britons are thought to have since returned home, where they pose a significant threat to national security. Britain's terrorism threat alert is at the second-highest level of "severe," meaning an attack is "highly likely." MI5's warnings are included in a major new report on the regulation of surveillance powers. Also known as the Anderson Report, the 380-page document was written by the UK's Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC. The report states: Continue Reading Article Turkey Cracks Down on the Free Press by Burak Bekdil  •  June 17, 2015 at 4:00 am This time, the Islamists are opting for less subtle methods than their previous tax fines. Now they are putting newspaper editors in jail. Hurriyet's editors may have to stand trial and face jail terms for running a headline identical to a remark made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Islamists' direct targeting of the country's largest media group is comparable to similar practices in the world's most authoritarian regimes. Mehmet Baransu, a Kurdish reporter for Turkey's Taraf daily newspaper, was arrested on March 1, 2015 and charged with "forming a criminal organization," as well as procuring, publicizing and then destroying "documents related to the state's interests at home and abroad." (Image source: ZamanTV video screenshot) It was once a Soviet joke, but now it applies to Turkey: A man envies civil liberties in the West: "One can even insult and curse the president of the United States," he says. His friend disagrees: "We have the same liberties here: one can freely insult and curse the president of the United States!" In 2008, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister, expressed his dislike of an assortment of international headlines (from the Associated Press, Reuters, the Washington Post, New York Times and Le Monde) on the front page of the Turkish daily, Hurriyet, this author suggested that the paper should have quoted more serious publications such as The Ulama Times, The Wahhabi Daily News or The Observant. In that 2008 op-ed piece, this author wrote, hoping it would remain a joke: "This columnist's humble advice to Hurriyet's publishers: Be wise, just do as I do and escape the corporate consequences." Continue Reading Article

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