The federal government will soon table a bill to allow for certain kinds of preventative arrests to thwart potential terror acts.
“I think that’s a very, very slippery slope, to be honest,” said John Horgan, director of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Horgan has authored more than 70 publications on terrorism and political violence, including for the British government and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“I think there is a real risk that we are confusing radicalization with terrorism. There are far more people that are radicalized than those who would ever become involved in terrorism,” said Horgan. “There is profound risk in losing perspective.”
Horgan’s comments echo those of Toronto imam Muhammad Robert Heft, who went to Iraq in 2003 to act as a human shield but came back disillusioned with militant groups.
“I don’t think anyone really becomes deradicalized; I think they become disengaged from the idea of this violence and this narrow understanding of (Islam),” said Heft, who has also said he still thinks radically but would never act violently.
Horgan says Canada also has to be careful how it identifies terrorists. He cited a 2012 U.K. court case that saw a woman convicted for downloading al-Qaida’s Inspire magazine under a charge of possessing “a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”
“We are dealing with a complex phenomenon; we have shifted to this preventative paradigm,” Horgan told the Citizen. “It’s remarkable to me as a scholar how we seem to have lost any sense of proportion in that.”
Horgan’s remarks came just days after the RCMP arrested two Ottawa twins, Ashton Carleton Larmond and Carlos Honor Larmond, both 24, after a lengthy anti-terror investigation.
Carlos Larmond was arrested at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport with police alleging he planned to participate in terrorist activity. Ashton Larmond was arrested in Ottawa and charged with offences related to facilitating a terrorist activity.
On Monday, the RCMP said it had charged a third man, Suliman Mohamed, for participation in the activity of a terrorist group, and that the arrest was “linked to the arrests of Ashton and Carlos Larmond.”
“A lot of counter-terrorism legislation conveys a confused idea of what it means to be involved in terrorism,” Horgan said. “Since 9/11, certainly the issue of what it means to be involved is now more confusing than ever.”
The RCMP has declined to provide further details about the three Ottawa men beyond brief press releases on the arrests, listing the charges.
Horgan has helped shape Boston’s “Countering Violent Extremism” strategy, in which authorities and counsellors help deter people from acting violently on radical beliefs. The program is among three the White House will showcase next month in an international summit Canadian government officials will attend.
“There’s a lot of justified cynicism and criticism about CVE. Some people see it as just an empty political gesture,” said Horgan. “But I think there are really valuable local initiatives that need to be showcased.
“We are way past due in terms of a cohesive, strategic framework,” he said, adding that researchers are still trying to design scientific means to evaluate CVE programs.
Canada will launch its own CVE program in the coming weeks. The RCMP has trained some officers to recognize people at risk of becoming radicalized and link them to local mentors, social workers, psychologists, community groups, relevant preachers and anyone else likely to help.
Horgan said Canada’s program can’t espouse “a one-size-fits-all-solution” but needs flexibility based on communities’ locations and demographics.
For instance, “the kind of thing one would do to reduce the risk of those falling to ISIS is totally different to what you would do to prevent Americans from trying to join the White Power movement,” he said.
Horgan has visited CVE programs in countries such as Saudi Arabia, which provides former militants with religious teachings in a sort of halfway house. Authorities occasionally pay for weddings and provide public-sector jobs for these former militants.
“It’s a Saudi solution to a Saudi problem,” he said. The country claims a 10-percent recidivism rate, but Horgan stresses there’s no scientific way to evaluate the success of CVE programs.
Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: DYLAN ROBERTSON
No comments:
Post a Comment