International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence

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International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ISCR) is a terrorism research institute based at King's College London. It is a collaboration between King's College, the University of Pennsylvania in the United, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel and the Regional Center on Conflict Prevention in Jordan.

Origins, history and launch

ISCR was launched in January 2008 but appears to have been planned at least by early 2007. Its website was registered on 16 April 2007 and it was registered as a UK company limited by guarantee (i.e. without shares) on 28 August 2007. The first press reference to ISCR is an article in The Times Higher Education Supplement on 23 November 2007. [1]

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith

ISCR's was launched at a conference in London which it called 'the First International Conference on Radicalisation and Political Violence'. The conference, which took place on 17 and 18 January 2008, attracted controversy over a month earlier when it was revealed that Avi Dichter, the former head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, had planned to attend, but that Israel's foreign and justice ministries had advised him not to in case he was arrested for alleged war crimes. [2] Dichter headed Shin Beth when it helped plan the assassination of Hamas military commander Saleh Shehada in July 2002. The operation killed Shehada's wife and nine children. [3] That early report aside, the most newsworthy aspect of the event was a speech by the UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on the morning of the first day [4] launching the government's new anti-terror intiative. Speaking to the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme before her speech, Smith said there were specific examples of websites that "clearly fall under the category of gratifying terrorism" and that, "There is growing evidence people may be using the internet both to spread messages and to plan specifically for terrorism."

A panel at the conference featuring (from left to right) Daniel Benjamin, Sadig Al-Mahdi, Nick Fielding, Richard Dearlove and Frank Gardner.

[5] The government's new intiative coincided with ISCR's first major research 'Countering Online Radicalisation', and no doubt ISCR's launch and the launch of the government's new terrorism intiative were deliberately timed.

Other keynote speakers at the event included US Senator Chuck Hagel, the Vice-President of Colombia Francisco Santos Calderon, the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, and the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis. Several prominent terrorism experts and commentators featured as panelists including the BBC's Frank Gardner, Olivier Roy, Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation, Richard Dearlove (former head of MI6) and Daniel Benjamin of the Brookings Institution. [6]

People

Leadership

Board of Trustees

Staff

Contact, References and Resources

Contact

Website www.icsr.info

Resources

References

  1. ↑ Rebecca Attwood, 'Anti-terror funds awarded', Times Higher Education Supplement, 23 November 2007; p.5 No. 1821
  2. ↑ Rory McCarthy, 'NewsWorld newsIsraelIsraeli minister cancels UK trip in fear of arrest', The Guardian, 7 December 2007
  3. ↑ Israeli avoids UK arrest threat,BBC News Online, 6th December 2007
  4. ↑ Tom Patterson, The Journal (Newcastle),17 January 2008; p.2
  5. ↑ quoted in Hélène Mulholland, 'Government targets extremist websites', guardian.co.uk, 17 January 2008
  6. ↑ PDF Copy of 'First International Conference on Radicalisation and Political Violence', <http://www.icsr.info/conference.php?id=3>, created 22 August 2009
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