BELGIUM BEGINS TO DEVELOP AN ANTI-RADICALIZATION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 000191 SIPDIS STATE PASS EUR/WE, S/CT, AND EUR/PGI E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/05/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER KISL BE SUBJECT: BELGIUM BEGINS TO DEVELOP AN ANTI-RADICALIZATION PLAN BRUSSELS 00000191 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Acting Political Economic Counselor, reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). Summary and Introduction -------------- ¶1. (C) Poloff and Political Analysts met recently with GOB security, counterterrorism, and police experts to discuss Belgium's national anti-radicalization policy-planning and development process. Belgium intends to complete by mid-2011 an anti-radicalization white paper that integrates threat detection, prevention, and response to radicalization threats. The GOB recently completed an operational-level anti-radicalization plan that focuses on threat detection. The Ministry of Interior's Safety and Prevention Division is working on the social prevention component to deal with the causes of radicalization, and the Belgian Federal Police are developing a guide for community policing that provides police officers the tools to recognize radicalization signals. The GOB is working closely with other EU member states in these areas and intends to highlight anti-radicalization policy during its July to December 2010 rotating EU Council Presidency. The GOB will target radicalization toward violence in its Islamic, right-wing, left-wing, and animal rights dimensions. Policy Development Responsibility -------------- ¶2. (C) Overarching anti-radicalization policy is developed at the operational and expert level by the College for Security and Intelligence. This inter-ministerial grouping is headed by the Prime Minister's Security Advisor and includes members from the Threat Analysis Center, the Federal Police, the MFA, Cabinet Advisors to the Ministers of Justice and Interior, the State Security Service, and the Ministry of Mobility and Transportation. The College reports to and advises the GOB's Ministerial Committee through the PM's Security Advisor. Threat Detection -------------- ¶3. (C) The threat-detection portion of the anti-radicalization plan has only recently been developed. Threats are analyzed on several axes: the internet, individual preachers, ideologies, and prisons. The State Security Service and Belgian Federal Police have the primary responsibility for gathering intelligence on these axes. They work closely with local community police and exchange information on threats and situations to improve the gathering of valuable information at the local level. White Paper by 2011 -------------- ¶4. (C) The GOB is working on a White Paper that includes a coherent strategic analysis of threats, with a focus on vectors of radicalization. Originally, the idea was to eliminate the existing radicalization threat. However, a new EU focus on prevention has led the GOB to look at EU initiatives and consider new domestic efforts and how they can be combined in practice. The White Paper should be completed by the end of Belgium's EU Presidency Troika (Spain, Belgium, and Hungary) in mid 2011. Anti-radicalization plans, including prevention, are likely to be a focus of the Troika, and particularly the Belgian Presidency. Contacts at the Threat Analysis Center said the Belgian Crisis Center will be coordinating projects and initiatives during Belgium's presidency. Analysts are already looking at EU-wide anti-radicalization initiatives that will be active or begin in 2010, during the Spanish (January - June 2010) and Belgian (July-December 2010) EU Council rotating presidencies. Social Prevention -------------- ¶5. (C) The Ministry of Interior's Safety and Prevention Directorate is working on the prevention aspects of Belgium's anti-radicalization plan. This effort is led by Integral Safety Service Head Gunter Ceuppens. Ceuppens told Poloff that the prevention plan would focus on the root causes of radicalization and provide a multi-disciplinary response including multiple actors. The key challenge in the Belgian system is developing action plans that work for each of the three autonomous regions (Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels), BRUSSELS 00000191 002.2 OF 003 which will have the main responsibility for carrying out prevention policy. Once fully developed, this plan will address the following four objectives: -- broaden the existing knowledge of radicalization phenomena and their impact on society, and optimize information exchange between societal, governmental, and international contacts -- limit the breeding ground of frustrations which could be the root causes of radicalization -- increase the resilience of individuals and groups in society against frustration, alienation, and radicalization -- develop a coordinated system that receives possible signals of radicalization and polarization and then interprets and addresses them correctly This effort will include educational, social services, urban, provincial, and regional officials to answer threats with programming that can reduce the risk of radicalization. ¶6. (U) The plan will address four types of radicalization: Islamic inspired, left-wing, right wing, and animal rights. Ceuppens stressed the GOB wanted to address radicalization leading to violence rather than global or philosophical radicalization. The working definition of violent radicalization used by the GOB is: "The increasing willingness of an individual or group, inspired by certain ideas or ideologies, to strive for profound changes in society and the democratic rule of law and doing so in an undemocratic manner and/or to support or incite others in doing so." ¶7. (C) Security and intelligence contacts shared some GOB internal debates and concerns on prevention policy. On the administrative level, they pointed out that the nature of the Belgian state, the regional governments (Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels) have the competency for social outreach and social prevention. This creates the possibility for disconnect and some variance in approach and abilities. On the philosophical side, analyst contacts said there was a debate on how to define radical, focusing on those who intend violence or those extremely conservative individuals who oppose "democratic principles and liberal values." They also questioned the validity of using "moderate" Muslim groups to try to moderate radicalization, arguing that you cannot deradicalize through individuals who lack "true-Muslim" credibility. Community Policing -------------- ¶8. (U) The police force plays an important role at the detection level. Local police are expected to feed potential threat information to the anti-terrorism cell of the Belgian Federal Police, headed by Police Commissar Eddy Greif. Greif informed Poloff that the challenge for local police is to recognize radicalization signals in the same manner as traditional crimes such as domestic violence, etc. He added that the traditional police role would simply be to lock up potential perpetrators; however, local and federal police need to play a part in the anti-radicalization effort, including the prevention process. The federal police are now focusing on providing local officers with the tools they need to identify and report radicalization. ¶9. (U) Jean-Pierre De Vos of the Belgian Federal Police, International Directorate for Police Cooperation has been in charge of designing the Community Policing and Prevention of Radicalisation (COPPRA) program. COPPRA is a Belgian initiative that has become an EU-wide effort that will be enacted during the Belgian presidency of the EU. Embassy Brussels Public Affairs Section funded a two-week anti-radicalization and counter-terrorism program for De Vos where he met with experts from the FBI and DHS, as well as attending the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Denver, CO. De Vos will incorporate the knowledge he gained into the COPPRA manual and training program. COPPRA plans to present first-line police officers with a broad definition of radicalization, as well as with the history, beliefs, practices, and potential signals of extremist groups. COPPRA will provide police officers with the tools needed to identify signs of radicalization and report it to higher authorities. BRUSSELS 00000191 003.3 OF 003 ¶10. (U) Currently, there are 11 EU member states participating in the COPPRA effort: Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Latvia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The project is being developed by two committees: the expert committee and the steering committee. Since the project,s initial meeting in Brussels, the expert committee has met twice, in Riga and Amsterdam, and they have compiled a first draft of the manual which will be presented to the steering committee in March. The final manual will be unveiled September 22 and 23, 2010 during Belgian's EU presidency, after which the EU member states will conduct train-the-trainer programs in five geographic regions of the EU. The trainers will then return to their home countries and train front-line officers beginning in early 2011. The COPPRA project has received grant money from the EU and as part of that funding, the program must be evaluated after five months, at which time suggestions and changes can be incorporated into the manual and training program. Comment -------------- (C) The GOB is aware that Belgium has been a breeding ground for extremists such as Malika El-Aroud and is now actively developing an anti-radicalization plan as a key component of counter-terrorism policy. Belgium will also make anti-radicalization and prevention a major theme during its EU Council Presidency. Belgium is currently collaborating with other EU member states in both prevention and community policing aspects of its anti-radicalization policy. Its experts and analysts are now working on approaches and plans. Post suggests we engage in dialogue with Belgian interlocutors during the next few months in an effort to assist a key ally in considering effective options that may spread from Belgium to a wider European stage. GUTMAN