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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon

Time: 8:20 pm

Results for white supremacists

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Author: Anti-Defamation League

Title: With Hate in their Hearts: The State of White Supremacy in the United States

Summary: The recent tragic shooting spree in June 2015 that took nine lives at Emanuel AME Church, a predominantly African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, starkly revealed the pain and suffering that someone motivated by hate can cause. The suspect in the shootings, Dylann Storm Roof, is a suspected white supremacist. The horrific incident-following earlier deadly shooting sprees by white supremacists in Kansas, Wisconsin, and elsewhere-makes understanding white supremacy in the United States a necessity. - White supremacist ideology in the United States today is dominated by the belief that whites are doomed to extinction by a rising tide of non-whites who are controlled and manipulated by the Jews-unless action is taken now. This core belief is exemplified by slogans such as the so-called Fourteen Words: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." - During the recent surge of right-wing extremist activity in the United States that began in 2009, white supremacists did not grow appreciably in numbers, as anti-government extremists did, but existing white supremacists did become more angry and agitated, with a consequent rise of serious white supremacist violence. - Most white supremacists do not belong to organized hate groups, but rather participate in the white supremacist movement as unaffiliated individuals. Thus the size of the white supremacist movement is considerably greater than just the members of hate groups. Among white supremacist groups, gangs are becoming increasingly important. - The white supremacist movement has a number of different components, including 1) neo-Nazis; 2) racist skinheads; 3) "traditional" white supremacists; 4) Christian Identity adherents; and 5) white supremacist prison gangs. The prison gangs are growing in size, while the other four sub-movements are stagnant or in decline. In addition, there are a growing number of Odinists, or white supremacist Norse pagans. There are also "intellectual" white supremacists who seek to provide an intellectual veneer or justification for white supremacist concepts. - White supremacists engage in a wide variety of activities to promote their ideas and causes or to cause fear in their enemies. They also engage in an array of social activities in which white supremacists gather for food and festivities. - Among domestic extremist movements active in the United States, white supremacists are by far the most violent, committing about 83% of the extremist-related murders in the United States in the past 10 years and being involved in about 52% of the shootouts between extremists and police. White supremacists also regularly engage in a variety of terrorist plots, acts and conspiracies. However, white supremacists also have a high degree of involvement with traditional forms of criminal activity as well as ideologically-based criminal activity. Most of the murders committed by white supremacists are done for non-ideological reasons. However, even if such murders are ignored, white supremacists still commit the most lethal violence of any domestic extremist movement in the United States.

Details: New York: Anti-Defamation League, 2015. 24p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 11, 2016 at: http://www.adl.org/assets/pdf/combating-hate/state-of-white-supremacy-united-states-2015.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: http://www.adl.org/assets/pdf/combating-hate/state-of-white-supremacy-united-states-2015.pdf

Shelf Number: 137446

Keywords:
Extremist Groups
Hate Crimes
Homeland Security
Racism
Radical Groups
White Supremacists

Author: Mulholland, Sean E.

Title: Hate Source: White Supremacist Hate Groups and Hate Crime

Summary: The relationship between hate group activity and hate crime is theoretically ambiguous. Hate groups may incite criminal behavior in support of their beliefs. On the other hand, hate groups may reduce hate crime by serving as a forum for members to verbally vent their frustrations or as protection from future biased violence. I find that the presence of an active white supremacist hate group chapter is associated with an 18.7 percent higher hate crime rate. White supremacist groups are not associated with the level of anti-white hate crimes committed by non-whites, nor do they form in expectation of future hate crimes by non-whites.

Details: Munich: Munich Personal RePEc Archive, 2011. 33p.

Source: Internet Resource: MPRA Paper No. 28861: Accessed December 14, 2016 at: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/28861/1/MPRA_paper_28861.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: United States

URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/28861/1/MPRA_paper_28861.pdf

Shelf Number: 144917

Keywords:
Extremist Groups
Hate Crime
Radical Groups
White Supremacists

Author: Anti-Defamation League

Title: Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2016

Summary: ONE WORD LOOMS OVER THE LANDSCAPE of deadly extremism and terrorism in the United States in 2016: Orlando. The June 2016 shooting spree at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by Omar Mateen - who killed 49 people and wounded 53 more - dwarfed in its lethality all other extremist-related murders this past year. Mateen, who claimed his attack in the name of ISIS, though there are no known connections between him and that terror organization, achieved the dubious distinction of being the deadliest domestic terrorist since Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Last year, the Anti-Defamation League reported that, in 2015, domestic extremists had killed more people than in any previous year since 1995. Largely because of Mateen's attack, 2016 now supplants 2015 in its deadly toll. ADL's preliminary tally of extremist-related deaths at the end of 2015 was 52. However, information that has emerged since then has now brought the 2015 total to 65 deaths at the hands of extremists, as it can sometimes take months or years for an extremist connection to a death to come to light. ADL's preliminary tally for 2016 is already at 69, a figure that includes the 49 killed by Mateen as well as 20 other murders committed by white supremacists, anti-government extremists such as sovereign citizens, and black nationalists. This grisly toll puts 2016 as the second deadliest year for domestic extremist-related deaths in the United States since 1970, the earliest year for which ADL maintains such statistics. The number will inevitably grow higher still as more 2016 murders turn out to have extremist ties. Were it not for the Orlando shootings, 2016 might have been considered a "mild" year for extremist-related deaths. Including Orlando, there were only 11 lethal incidents in the U.S. in 2016 that can be connected to extremism, compared to 29 incidents in 2015. Moreover, the number of incidents involving multiple fatalities in 2016 was only five, half the number of such incidents in 2015. Leaving out the Orlando shootings, one would have to go back all the way to 2006 to find a number of people killed by extremists smaller than that in 2016. The Pulse massacre was a single event so egregious in its casualty tolls that it can actually distort statistics and perceptions surrounding the extremist landscape. It is important to note that the number of Americans killed by domestic extremists is small compared to the total number of murders in the United States or even the number of those who die from gun violence each year. But these deaths represent merely the tip of a pyramid of extremist violence and crime in this country. For every person killed at the hands of an extremist, many more are wounded or injured in attempted murders and assaults. Every year, police uncover and prevent a wide variety of extremist plots and conspiracies with lethal intentions. And extremists engage in a wide variety of other crimes related to their causes, from threats and harassment to white collar crime. To give just one other measure of extremist violence as an example, for the five years from 2012-2016, at least 56 shooting incidents between police and domestic extremists occurred (the vast majority of them shootouts or incidents in which extremists shot at police). During these encounters, extremists shot 69 police officers, 18 fatally. Additionally, compared to many other types of violence, extremist-related violence has the power to shock or spread fear within an entire community - or an entire nation - as the Orlando shootings so tragically demonstrated this past year. The enormity of the attack in Orlando shocked and frightened all Americans, but it was a particular blow to the LGBT community in the United States, as the Pulse nightclub was a gay bar and dance club and most of the victims were gay, lesbian, or transgender.

Details: New York: Anti-Defamation League, 2017. 8p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 21, 2017 at: https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/MurderAndExtremismInUS2016.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: United States

URL: https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/MurderAndExtremismInUS2016.pdf

Shelf Number: 147425

Keywords:
Domestic Terrorism
Extremist
Extremist Groups
Extremist Violence
Homicides
Terrorism
White Supremacists

Author: Counter Extremism Project

Title: European Ethno-Nationalist and White Supremacy Groups

Summary: More than 70 years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, ethno-nationalist and white supremacist movements in Europe continue to thrive. They include far-right political parties, neo-Nazi movements, and apolitical protest groups. Some groups openly espouse violent white supremacy, while others have propagated their radical stances under the guise of populism. Such populist groups claim that they are striving to protect average hardworking Europeans by preserving their livelihoods and heritages from economic and cultural threats posed by immigrants and ethnic minorities. Though not all of these groups directly link their ideologies to Nazism, their propaganda portrays immigrants and ethnic minorities in a similar manner to how Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews, blaming them for national economic troubles and depicting them as a serious threat to the broader national identity. In a June 2018 speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel recognized that the majority of refugees are victims, and that "escape and expulsion are part of our German and European history." Nonetheless, several far-right political parties in Europe have infused anti-immigrant and particularly anti-Muslim xenophobia into their party platforms through the concept of ethno-nationalism - the idea that a nation should be composed of a single ethnicity. These parties postulate that hardworking European natives are suffering economic and cultural losses due to immigrants and ethnic minorities who want to replace national, religious, and cultural identities with foreign values. Ethno-nationalists also view multiculturalism as a code word for the destruction of the native national identity. For example, Hungary's neo-fascist Jobbik political party rejects "the dead-end Western European multiculturalism" and has pledged to "defend our cultural identity developed over our history." Groups like Germany's Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) political party lament the influx of Muslim immigrants, which they claim weakens the German culture and quality of life. AfD has gone so far as to claim that Islam is a danger to Germany. These far-right political parties have therefore been able to unite ethno-nationalism with populism by propagating the notion that ethno-nationalism serves the average hardworking individual and the broader national identity. Their propaganda campaigns have allowed them to generate substantial popular support and make gains in domestic elections. The AfD came in third in Germany's September 2017 parliamentary elections. In March 2018's Italian parliamentary elections, the far-right, anti-immigrant Lega Nord ("Northern League") party succeeded in becoming the third largest party in Italy's parliament. In June 2018, League leader Matteo Salvini assumed the role of Italy's interior minister. He has since refused a migrant aid ship permission to dock in Italy and called for a national census to address "the Roma question." Both parties also view the European Union as a harmful foreign influence that has undermined the sovereignty of their respective nations. Salvini has even derided the euro as a "German currency" and a "crime against humanity." Some ethno-nationalist political movements have openly embraced the language and symbolism of the Nazi movement. In Hungary, Gabor Vona, the former chair of the far-right Jobbik, has blamed international Jewry for attempting to buy Hungary and interfere in its elections. Jobbik has also used the Nazi "Arrow Cross" to symbolize pride in Hungary's Nazi past. In 2014, a Hungarian court ruled that Jobbik may be referred to as "neo-Nazi" in Hungary. Despite similarities in propaganda, however, not all of Europe's far-right political movements have openly embraced links to the Nazi or neo-Nazi movements. Members of the French anti-immigrant Les Identitaires movement reject violence and consider themselves to be patriots defending European identity from cultural corruption imposed by Islamic mores. Les Identitaires' youth wing, Generation Identity (GI), has a presence across Europe and uses social media and popular demonstrations to propagate similar anti-Islamic notions and gain traction with young people. Some of Europe's historically non-political, violent far-right groups have not only embraced similar populist language to the ethno-nationalist political movements, but also continue to espouse openly racist concepts and employ violence to achieve their visions of an ethnically homogenous state. Combat 18, a violent neo-Nazi skinhead group founded in the United Kingdom in 1992, currently has a presence in at least 18 countries. Similar to ISIS in its aim to create a Muslim-only caliphate, the group encourages supporters to carry out lone-wolf terrorist attacks as part of its greater aim to create white-only countries through violence. National Action is another group of young far-right extremists that, in 2016, became the first far-right group to be labeled as a terrorist organization in the United Kingdom after it praised the murder of a parliamentarian. The group, whose members believe that "Britain should be for British people," reportedly operates training camps where recruits learn hand-to-hand combat in preparation for "white jihad." Not only do these violent white supremacist groups employ similar strategies to some of the most prominent Islamic terror groups, but they are also motivated to pursue the radical end goal of an ethnically or culturally homogenous state due to similar concerns that their identity and way of life are under threat. The Counter Extremism Project (CEP)'s European Ethno-Nationalist and White Supremacy Groups report outlines the history, propaganda, violent activities, and notable rhetoric of some of the continent's most active ethno-nationalist and white supremacist groups.

Details: London, UK: Counter Extremism Project, 2018. 56p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 9, 2019 at: https://www.counterextremism.com/european-white-supremacy-groups

Year: 2018

Country: Europe

URL: https://www.counterextremism.com/sites/default/themes/bricktheme/pdfs/European_Ethno-Nationalist_and_White_Supremacy_Groups_081618.pdf

Shelf Number: 154061

Keywords:
Anti-Immigration
Ethno-Nationalists
Far-Right Political Parties
Lone-wolf Terrorist Attacks
Nazism
Radicalism
White Supremacists

Author: Fink, Naureen Chowdhury

Title: Beyond Terrorism: Deradicalization and Disengagement from Violent Extremism

Summary: Executive Summary Many scholars have noted the cyclical nature of terrorist movements. Yet, little attention has been paid to the ways in which such groups come to an end or move away from violence of their own accord. Similarly, though much current attention has focused on the process of radicalization and the espousal of violent extremism, Tore Bjorgo and John Horgan argue that insufficient attention has been paid to the other end of the spectrum: the factors which prompt individual and collective withdrawal from violent extremist or radical groups - i.e., the processes of disengagement and deradicalization. Disengagement refers to a behavioral change, such as leaving a group or changing one's role within it. It does not necessitate a change in values or ideals, but requires relinquishing the objective of achieving change through violence. Deradicalization, however, implies a cognitive shift - i.e., a fundamental change in understanding. Furthermore, it has been argued that, cumulatively, such processes can have a positive impact on global counterterrorism efforts by promoting the internal fragmentation of violent radical groups and by delegitimizing their rhetoric and tactics in the eyes of the broader public. To this end, Bjorgo and Horgan have edited a volume gathering together research, analyses, and case studies on processes of disengagement from violent extremism, as well as descriptions and assessments of global initiatives facilitating withdrawal from violent extremist groups. This report draws on their work and reflects the discussions at a conference on "Leaving Terrorism Behind: Individual and Collective Disengagement from Violent Extremism," hosted by the International Peace Institute and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on April 22, 2008, in New York City. Bringing together a wide range of perspectives from the academic, diplomatic, and practitioner communities in New York, this conference generated an engaging discussion on the impact of disengagement and deradicalization programs on global counterterrorism efforts and informed the ongoing work of the UN in this area. Researchers at the conference described various initiatives, including those undertaken in Europe, Southeast Asia, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia, which are detailed below. Furthermore, the report notes a number of innovative programs in, for example, Yemen and Qatar, which have sought creative solutions to the challenge of radicalization within their societies. Although research into violent groups in various countries was conducted discretely, researchers noted common patterns which arose among the factors encouraging disengagement from violent extremism. Among these were familial and social influences; frustration with the group's leadership or tactics; and longing for a "normal" civilian life separate from clandestine activities and the threat of punitive actions by law enforcement. Consequently, whether discussing white supremacist groups or jihadist terrorists, disengagement and deradicalization were encouraged by many similar factors, beginning for many with the experience of trauma and a subsequent "cognitive opening," disillusionment, revulsion, or stress, and further facilitated by education, social and economic assistance, and counseling. This has important implications for the work of the United Nations in countering terrorism and violent radicalism. These patterns highlight the value of a cross-fertilization of ideas among different regional and ideological groups; for example, lessons learned in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia may be applied in Europe, and the experiences of Irish Republicans may tell us much about jihadists in Southeast Asia. However, the research team also noted that there is no "one-size-fits-all" model; terrorism is often context-specific and, therefore, the local environment and culture must impact the format of such initiatives. Still, these findings also indicate great value in broad cooperative initiatives to share experiences, program designs, research, and analysis among UN Member States, especially those countries grappling with the challenge of violent extremism or terrorism. Although the UN might not be a central actor in many of these programs, which are mostly the result of national initiatives, it could provide the mechanisms for transmitting lessons learned from one country to another and assist states in the development of their own programs. Given its universal state membership, its access to international expertise, and its convening power, participants at the conference suggested key roles in which the United Nations could contribute to facilitating disengagement and deradicalization initiatives: - Collating best practices and information sharing By drawing on its convening capacity, the United Nations and its partners can collect and disseminate insights, best practices, and lessons learned to inform the initiatives of Member States and relevant organizations. - Facilitating cooperative relationships and capacity development The UN can also empower and facilitate regional and cross-regional cooperative mechanisms among counterterrorism practitioners and state representatives. One product from such a series of exchanges might be a compendium or manual derived from states' collated best practices and experiences in setting up a disengagement or deradicalization program. - Developing standards and benchmarks The mapping exercise currently being undertaken by the Counterterrorism Implementation Task Force's Working Group on "radicalization and extremism that leads to terrorism" may be developed into a series of standards and benchmarks that states and their programs might use to measure success. - Capacity-building assistance for criminal justice systems Arms of the United Nations, such as the Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) and the Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), perform roles that supplement the UN’s counterterrorism efforts by transmitting technical knowledge and assistance. Their expertise in legal, judicial, and criminal matters may be drawn upon by states seeking to develop deradicalization and disengagement programs. - Norm-setting and media outreach In many subject areas, such as human rights, decolonization, and child combatants, the UN has served as a setter of international norms. This role could be further extended to set international standards and norms delegitimizing the use of violence against noncombatants and highlight the negative impact of violent extremism on families and societies, bolstered by a strong and vocal commitment from a cross-regional coalition of UN Member States. As Terje Pedersen, Norway's Deputy Minister of Justice and the Police, noted, discussions about terrorism and the broader understanding of it have come a long way since September 11, 2001, but there is yet much to learn regarding long-term prevention. This discussion was intended therefore not only to inform the work of the UN and its Member States, but also to encourage further research and analysis of the processes and drivers of individual and collective disengagements. This will help states to better understand how these processes relate to their counterterrorism strategies and capacities. The UN, with its role in facilitating knowledge exchange and providing technical assistance, may be a vital element in a truly holistic and transnational approach to the challenge of violent extremism.

Details: New York, NY: International Peace Institute, 2008. 36p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 21, 2019 at: https://www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/beter.pdf

Year: 2008

Country: International

URL: https://www.ipinst.org/2008/10/beyond-terrorism-deradicalization-and-disengagement-from-violent-extremism

Shelf Number: 154324

Keywords:
Countering Violent Extremism
Counterterrorism
Deradicalization
Disengagement
Extremism
Extremists
Jihadists
Radical Groups
Radicalization
Terrorism
Terrorists
Violent Extremism
Violent Groups
White Supremacists