Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
10BRUSSELS191
2010-02-17 16:31:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Brussels
Cable title:  

BELGIUM BEGINS TO DEVELOP AN ANTI-RADICALIZATION

Tags:  PGOV PREL PTER KISL BE 
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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
-------------------------

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.

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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