[CEP Senior Director] Iran expert Hans-Jakob Schindler sees the mullah regime in a “lose-lose situation.” Making major concessions to the US would be risky and could provoke a coup by the Revolutionary Guards.

Höss’ former home sits cheek by jowl with Auschwitz, literally just metres away. It has been bought by a US organisation called the Counter Extremism Project and transformed into the Auschwitz Research Centre on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88. A former symbol of hate is now a place where people can learn how to fight extremism and anti-Semitism. “We reclaimed this house after 80 years to do something positive,” says Purski, a political scientist and educator who researches extremist ideologies for the Counter Extremism Project.

A report from the Counter Extremism Project describes a pro-ISIS chat on RocketChat in which a user allegedly interrogated an "uncensored AI" for technical information on explosives and destructive capabilities. The case reopens the debate on decentralized platforms, propaganda, and radicalization.

"It is likely that, similar to Ali Khamenei's case in 1989, the decision will fall on a weak candidate. In 1989, Khamenei was considered harmless by all religious schools in Qom because he lacked his own religious power base," Hans-Jakob Schindler, head of the Berlin-based think tank Counter Extremism Project, told our editorial team. "Now it will be crucial to find a candidate who does not pose an obvious threat to the enormous power of the various branches of the Revolutionary Guard, but who maintains good relations with the Guard's overall organization." However, the negotiations within the Assembly of Experts could also result in a leadership body of religious clerics instead of a new Supreme Leader.

This acquisition is part of a broader commitment to confront antisemitism and extremism. I was honored to help the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) purchase the former home of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, which stands just beyond the camp’s walls. Höss lived there in splendor with his wife and five children while directing the murder of a million Jews. CEP has transformed this home of a mass murdering antisemite into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, a groundbreaking initiative using cutting-edge technology to fight back against antisemitism, extremism and terrorism.

The first show is called Enduring Music: Compositions from the Holocaust, and its organizers told the Reporter that it is “a landmark concert of music…composed in ghettos and death camps, performed in defiance of resurgent anti-Semitism.” The Counter Extremism Project’s Daniel Roth told the Reporter that the performance, which will take place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, “will bring classical, folk, and popular music nearly erased by atrocity back into public consciousness through the work of world-renowned composer, conductor, and musicologist Francesco Lotoro.”

The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) reports on the methods used by extremists and terrorist groups on the Internet to spread propaganda and incite violence. Last week, CEP researchers found a conversation in a pro-ISIS chatroom, where an individual claimed to have used an AI program to ask the quantity of explosives necessary for a terrorist attack. The same user claimed that using a paid version of the same AI could yield instructions for making explosives. CEP researchers were unable to confirm this in a test of the same AI platform.

Investigators are indeed feeling a certain pressure to succeed, believes extremism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter Extremism Project in Berlin. "The authorities want to deliver results, along the lines of: We need an arrest now," Schindler told the Munich-based newspaper Merkur, published by Ippen.Media.

CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler on arrest of Russian spy in Berlin and extradition of Russian diplomat from Germany.