Coups are never a good thing, especially in countries that purport to be democracies like Turkey. Yet, the July 15 coup attempt would have been that country’s sixth since Kemal Ataturk enforced secularism in the 1920s after the demise of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW I.

In the midst of the coup attempt, many media pundits characterized the events as an attack on democracy, while others online and on social media repeated conspiracy theories aimed at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For secularists, Erdogan has increasingly become a figure synonymous with Hitler, whose rise through democratic institutions resulted in democracy’s demise in Germany. The Peace and Justice Party (AKP) With Erdogan at its helm, has increasingly jailed members of the free press; discouraged women from becoming involved in politics and civil society; marginalized minorities despite promises of greater integration prior to the last election; and looked the other way as the country become a transit point to ISIS-held territory in Syria and an arms/extremist route from the Middle East back to Europe.

Erdogan famously described democracy as a bus ride that ends when you arrive at your destination. His goal has increasingly become an Islamist autocracy, not a stronger democratic Turkey. As president, Erdogan has called women who do not have children "deficient"; demanded a comedian be sued because she dared make fun of Erdogan from Germany; and jailed anyone that looks at him or his power grab over the last decade the wrong way. He has tried pro-secular generals to remove them from the military, and jailed political dissidents and human rights activists. Instead of integrating Turkey into a global community built on the principles of universal human rights, Erdogan has preferred to remove all threats to his fantastic dreams of a neo-Ottoman empire to rival the power plays of other countries in an already broken Middle East. And that was before the coup attempt gave him further excuse to strike out against perceived enemies.

With calm returning to Turkey a few days after the coup attempt failed, (despite the arrests of thousands from the military to the judiciary) – Erdogan demanded the U.S. extradite Fetahullah Gulen, an old man, retired and living in Pennsylvania. Though, Gulen is not known to many outside of academic and policy circles, he should be. Gulen, has not only funded a global Islamist movement that advocates for a reportedly democratic-friendly interpretation of Islam, he was a necessary ally to Erdogan’s rise in Turkey during the last 15 years before the two men had a falling out. Over time, it is believed that Gulen and his followers became a threat to Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic vision of leadership.

It remains to be seen whether Erdogan staged the coup so he could have an excuse to flush out the remaining cadre of secularists and pro-Gulen activists in government, the judiciary and military as some Turkish journalists believe; or if Gulen truly did try and remove Erdogan from power from the outside as the Turkish government maintains. What matters today is that Erdogan has moved one step closer to establishing a dictatorship that would end Turkey’s experiment in secularism and democracy.

No one should applaud a coup. But a democracy in name only can be even more dangerous. A true secular Turkey would not need the military to be ushered in periodically to prop up its democratic constitution. One must assume, then, that Turkey should have obsessed less about whether women wore hijabs in universities, and focused more on inculcating democratic values through its education system throughout the nation. This especially includes the countryside, where far away from the secular, westernized urban centers, families live in traditionally patriarchal societies like their neighbors to the east.  With promises of a better economy, the AKP and Erdogan was embraced in rural areas and the countryside became the backbone of the AKP for more than 10 years.

It remains to seen what impact Erdogan’s continuing purge of the police, military and judiciary will have on Turkey’s commitment to fighting ISIS or its role in controlling the flow of refugees. If Turkey’s economy continues to go downhill as fearful tourists go elsewhere, Erdogan may have to take a break from his power grab and flirting with Russia to improve his marred relationship with his own citizens and NATO allies abroad. Until then, it appears democracy’s retreat globally has reached Turkey, which will only empower extremists further in the region. 

Welcome to the View from Brussels, a perspective from the de facto capital of Europe on the state of counterterrorism, extremism, and radicalisation throughout the European Union.

The recent terror attacks across Europe and the use of social media platforms by terrorist groups to radicalize and recruit new members has provided more urgency to tackling online hate speech, which encourages violence and extremism.

With this in mind, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body headquartered in Brussels, together with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Microsoft, unveiled on 31 May 2016 a Code of Conduct that includes a series of commitments to combat the spread of illegal hate speech online in Europe.

This initiative aims to build upon the EU Internet Forum, launched in December 2015, to ensure that online hate speech is tackled in a manner similar to that of other media channels. By signing this code, the technology companies commit to continuing their efforts to eliminate online hate speech. Companies signing the code promise to review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary. The companies also commit to strengthening their ongoing partnerships with civil society organisations, which can help flag content that promotes incitement to violence and extremism. These companies and the European Commission commit also to continue their work in identifying and promoting counter-narratives, new ideas and initiatives, and educational programmes that encourage critical thinking.

On 4 July 2016, the European Parliament voted on draft legislation to fight terrorism “by criminalising preparatory acts” such as “public incitement or praise of terrorism” online and offline.This will give Member States the responsibility to remove illegal content hosted within their borders that, for example, glorifies or justifies  suicide bombers, incites to killings, and spreads hatred. The draft legislation also criminalises traveling abroad and training for terrorist purposes as well as contributing financially to terrorism. Members of the European Parliament also stressed the need for an efficient information and good practices sharing system between EU countries.

Additionally, this coming fall, the European Parliament is scheduled to discuss how social media platforms are being exploited by terrorist groups to radicalise and recruit vulnerable young Europeans to fight in foreign wars.

The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) welcomes the commitment of the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the technology companies to combating the spread of terrorist material and the exploitation of social media channels to facilitate and direct terrorist activities. These public-private commitments reflect what CEP has repeatedly called for as part of its  #CEPDigitalDisruption campaign. Specifically and among other things, CEP has sought (1) a more accessible reporting system for users to flag illegal content promoting hatred and inciting violence; (2) faster review and removal of such content on the part of IT companies; and (3) the establishment of a system of "trusted reporters" to provide high quality notifications for more reliable detection and faster removal.

While welcoming this formal adoption of our proposed measures, CEP’s European team will continue to closely monitor implementation on the part of technology companies and the EU Commission to ensure they do not become empty words, but represent a decisive step forward in the fight against online extremism. 

Ever since ISIS captured Mosul in June 2014, political and military leaders in Iraq and the United States have regarded the liberation of Iraq’s second-largest city as a sine qua non for rolling back the caliphate. The campaign against ISIS has made progress on many fronts, but predictions that the army of terror would soon be dislodged from Mosul appear premature at best.

The primary reason why the assault on Mosul has been repeatedly postponed rests with Iraq’s feeble and fractured central government. Recently, demonstrators loyal to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raucously occupied the parliament in Baghdad. As lawmakers fled the scene, the demonstrators – chanting “you are all thieves” – called for the dissolution of the government. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the arrest of the protesters and declared a state of emergency, but the latest crisis reveals the intensifying power struggle within the political system. In the recent past, such instability has nurtured the jihadist threat.

Under Abadi’s predecessor, political dysfunction in Baghdad set the conditions for the rise of ISIS. Iraq’s central government had welcomed Iranian assistance because of its fear of abandonment by America, and this hardened the Shiite character of the regime. Nouri al-Maliki’s tenure was marked by relentless marginalization of the Sunni minority. First, the Sons of Iraq – the force that with the U.S. had vanquished ISIS’s forerunner, al-Qaeda in Iraq – were disbanded and harassed. The Iraqi army was gradually transformed into a de facto Shia militia. Sunni opposition politicians - including the deputy prime minister - were arrested, and elections were manipulated.

The Shia-dominated government’s chronic misrule now represents the greatest threat to Iraq, according to Emma Sky, a former advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority. Sky observes that the destructive politics of the “green zone” – the walled-off enclave on the Tigris river where Iraq’s political class divvy up state largesse, generally for themselves and their clients – has put in jeopardy Iraq’s entire post-Saddam order. It has alienated crucial constituencies, not least the Sunni and Kurdish minorities whose support is crucial to the liberation of Mosul.

While stationed en masse in Iraq, the U.S. army was dubbed “the defense militia for those [Iraqis] without a militia.” Today, Sky writes, “the sad reality is that Iraq has become ungovernable, more a state of militias than a state of institutions.”

Whatever its costs, the robust U.S. presence in Iraq – political as much as military – ensured a degree of Iraqi social and political cohesion that prevented the consolidation of power in Baghdad under one sect at the expense of others. It is precisely this tyranny of the majority that arose in the wake of America’s withdrawal, and that ISIS has exploited to its advantage among the aggrieved and alienated Sunni minority ever since. Unfortunately for ISIS’s enemies, this state of affairs shows no signs of abating.