Tag: terrorism

I Know It When I See It

Legal Feminist welcomes feminist blog posts from practising lawyers. In this post, guest blogger and paralegal Ffion Lloyd writes about the shocking growth of the incel movement and suggests the time has come to treat it as a terrorist movement.

We all know the phrase, ‘I know it when I see it’, when you may struggle to describe or pinpoint what ‘it’ exactly is, however, we all feel it and know where ‘its’ boundaries are. Schmid and Jongman described terrorism as acts committed for “idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons.” This definition includes mass attacks by non-ideological psychotics. The Crown Prosecution Service describes terrorism as “the use or threat of action… designed to influence any international government organisation or to intimidate the public” which is “for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause” and cites examples as including “serious violence against a person” “endangering a person’s life” and “creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public”.

Despite these recognised and accepted definitions, there remain a number of organisations and groups in the UK which blatantly pose a threat to the safety and security of society and yet are not recognised by the authorities as terrorist or as holding terrorist ideologies. 

On Thursday 12th August 2021 Britain witnessed its worst mass shooting in nearly a decade. A country that, since the Dunblane shootings, has successfully avoided the horror of mass shootings. We have prided ourselves on being the complete opposite to the USA when it comes to gun control.  The UK has strict and rigorously enforced gun control laws; anyone caught in possession of an illegal firearm will face a mandatory minimum prison sentence of seven years.

But in spite of our tight gun control, two women, two men and a three-year-old girl were fatally shot in 12 minutes by a 22-year-old, self-identified ‘incel’. In the aftermath of this shocking event, use of the phrase “incel” had the media frantically seeking to explain what this right-wing, misogynistic ideology stands for. However, this is not a new term let alone a new group. A January 2020 report by the Texas Department of Public Safety warned that incels were an “emerging domestic terrorism threat” that “could soon match, or potentially eclipse, the level of lethalness demonstrated by other domestic terrorism types“.

Alongside that report, a 2020 paper, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, published by Bruce Hoffman noted that the incel movement’s “core ethos entails the subjugation and repression of a group and its violence is designed to have far-reaching societal effects” and concluded that “the violent manifestations of the ideology pose a new terrorism threat, which should not be dismissed or ignored by domestic law enforcement agencies“. Yet despite these warnings, Jake Davison, a 22-year-old guy from Plymouth, was frequently and freely able to post YouTube videos, actively discussing his life failures and angrily complaining that the root cause of his insecurities and lack of sexual experience were the fault of women. More specifically, the lack of interest women had in him.

The Incel movement is an inherently misogynistic internet subculture that has reportedly led to over 61 homicide deaths since its founding. The term “involuntary celibate” arose in the 1990s and originally had no violent connotation. However over the last two decades, the incel community became increasingly misogynistic, blaming women and glorifying rape and violence against women.  Then in 2014, Elliot Rodger murdered 6 people, and wounded 14 others, as part of what he called a “Day of Retribution” rooted in the frightening notion that women were fundamentally flawed and deserved death. Rodger went on to write his lengthy 133-page manifesto in which he rationalises the massacre of women. In his “ultimate and perfect ideology of… a fair and pure world,” all women should be “quarantined” in “concentration camps,” where he could “gleefully watch them die,” though some would be kept alive and artificially inseminated to perpetuate humanity. Following this event, pro-violent, internet subcultures have continued to grow and have resulted in several murders and attacks by men propagating this terrifying ideology. 

Despite this, as the law currently stands in the UK incel ideologies are seemingly not regarded a dangerous enough to be classed as terrorism. In the past, extremist groups which have sought to overthrow the social order,  the IRA, the LTTE and most recently ISIS, have been deemed terrorist organisations. Why is the incel movement any different?  

ISIS provides a good case in point – it is recognised as representing a direct threat to the security of a country and its interests; the incel movement undermines democratic norms and values of equality and shares a number of similarities. They are male dominated, historically anti-women and heavily rely on the internet and online forums as a primary communication tool. While anti-women views existed long before the internet, subsections of the internet have accelerated their spread, expanded their reach and fuelled their women hating content.

The nature of attacks, perpetrated by violent radicalized groups such as the incel movement and ISIS, have a very gendered dimension which is predominately virtual and largely comprises young males. How can it be that one an illegal terrorist organisation and the other simply frowned upon, when at their core, they have such fundamental similarities? Does the fact that ISIS is founded in a religious doctrine make it fundamentally more dangerous? It is very hard to see why that should be the case.  If that is the case, what is the difference? Are incels deemed less dangerous because they predominantly target women and not men? Does this somehow make them less of a threat to society? 

If so, this is naive, given incel perpetrators have clearly shown that their attacks also target men, who are deemed attractive and lucky in life (‘chads’). More to the point, the suggestion that hatred of women is somehow less of a threat is also a terrifying conclusion. Violent attacks on women in general have been all too frequent items in the news in recent years, from the shocking assassination of Jo Cox to the brutal murder of Sarah Everard. The murder of Sarah Everard led to an outpouring of concern about violence against women.  And yet despite those sentiments, society has not yet fully recognised the dangers posed by those who fundamentally hate women.  Incel related violence is explicitly aimed at instigating an overthrow of social order. 

Terrorism, I know it when I see it. When will the government? 

Shamima Begum: the Court of Appeal decision

Shamima Begum, the British teenager who left her home at 15 to become an ISIS child bride, has successfully challenged two decisions. She had wanted to return to Britain, her home country.

The government revoked her citizenship, arguing that she would not be made stateless because she would be entitled to apply for Bangladeshi citizenship. She challenged this through an appeal to SIAC. SIAC rejected her appeal, on the basis that

  • her hearing would not be fair, but that was not determinative in her favour;
  • she would be entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship;
  • although she was living in conditions which breach Article 3, she was not entitled to protection under the Convention because she is outside the country as a result of her own action

At the same time, she had applied for leave to enter the UK. A British citizen may enter the UK, but as she had lost her citizenship, she needed to apply for permission to enter (commonly referred to as “a visa” although there are distinctions between different types of entry clearance and leave to enter). The Secretary of State (“SSHD”) refused. She applied for judicial review of this decision. Permission was granted but the substantive JR was refused.

She then appealed to the Court of Appeal on both decisions.

The Court has allowed both appeals, although stopped short of allowing the deprivation of citizenship appeal outright. Subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court, this would mean that she would return to the UK in order to have her citizenship appeal reheard. Giving the leading judgment, Flaux LJ (with whom King LJ and Singh LJ agreed) held that

The fact that she left the country of her own free will is premature, and irrelevant to whether she can have a fair hearing.

In my judgment, the circumstances in which Ms Begum left the UK and remained in Syria and whether she did so of her own free will should be irrelevant to the question of the legal and procedural consequences of SIAC’s conclusion that she cannot have a fair and effective appeal. Furthermore, I would be uneasy taking a course which, in effect, involved deciding that Ms Begum had left the UK as a 15 year old schoolgirl of her own free will in circumstances where one of the principal reasons why she cannot have a fair and effective appeal is her inability to give proper instructions or provide evidence. One of the topics that could be explored on her appeal before SIAC is precisely what were the circumstances in which she left the UK in 2015, but that could only properly be determined after a fair and effective appeal. The Secretary of State’s submission risks putting the cart before the horse.

§94

However, that does not mean that her appeal against deprivation of citizenship must just be allowed outright. To do so would mean that any appeal in similar circumstances, however lacking in merit, would also have to be allowed.

In particular, where, as in the present case, the deprivation decision is based on an expert assessment that it is in the interests of national security, simply allowing an appeal would set that assessment at nought, a point which was powerfully made by Sir James Eadie QC. That seems to me to be an extreme position which is wrong in principle and would potentially set a dangerous precedent.

§95

So what were her next options? The court looked at three of them: (i) that she could simply continue with her appeal, fair or otherwise, (ii) that she could apply for a stay of the appeal in the hope that at some point in the future she might be able to take part in it, or (iii) if she did not ask for a stay, she would inevitably fail to comply with a direction, the appeal would be struck out, but she might be able to apply to reinstate it.

Their Lordships appeared underwhelmed by options (i) and (iii).

The first and third of these courses can be swiftly dismissed as failing to answer the issue of unfairness and lack of effectiveness of the appeal. With due respect to SIAC, it is unthinkable that, having concluded that Ms Begum could not take any meaningful part in her appeal so that it could not be fair and effective, she should have to continue with her appeal nonetheless….
It is one thing for an appeal to proceed without the participation of the appellant against an appellant who chooses not to participate. It is quite another to proceed with an appeal without the participation of the appellant because the appellant is unable to participate meaningfully and effectively. Far from remedying the unfairness, this would seem to compound it. As Singh LJ said in the course of argument, it is difficult to conceive of any case where a court or tribunal has said we cannot hold a fair trial, but we are going to go on anyway.

§113 – 114

Option (iii) was considered, but rejected on the basis that it would be an indefinite stay, with the potential risk of execution or mistreatment abroad a “foreseeable risk.”

The Court pointed out that she can be held in custody or made subject to a TPIM, as has happened to others who appear to be far more dangerous and have been involved in actual fighting rather than ancillary support through becoming a wife.

It seems to me that… the national security concerns about her could be addressed and managed if she returns to the United Kingdom. If the Security Service and the Director of Public Prosecutions consider that the evidence and public interest tests for a prosecution for terrorist offences are met, she could be arrested and charged upon her arrival in the United Kingdom and remanded in custody pending trial. If that were not feasible, she could be made the subject of a TPIM.

§120

There seems little reason that Begum could not be prosecuted. s.17 Terrorism Act 2006 allows for prosecution in the UK of a person who commits a terrorism offence abroad. Even allowing that extra territorial jurisdiction was introduced for some of the specified offences (“inviting or expressing support”) only in 2019 and therefore may not apply, membership of a proscribed organisation, aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of an offence, could apply. This is not one of those cases in which a suspect argues that they were simply attending a distant relative’s wedding and naively wandered through a terrorist zone. She has given an interview expressing support for ISIS. The question is perhaps not whether she could be prosecuted, but why on earth she might not be.

It seems extremely likely that this case will now be appealed to the Supreme Court. An issue which will not trouble the Courts, but may vex the casual reader, is this: why is the Government taking such a hardline approach to an ISIS child bride, when they reportedly allowed back 400 actual fighters, surely far more culpable, to face prosecution and / or a comfortable sojourn at a “leading mental health clinic?”