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Download the Country Reports National Approaches to Extremism Corinne Torrekens and Daphné de le Vingne (Eds.) The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under Grant Agreement no. 870772 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870772 Consortium Members CONNEKT COUNTRY REPORTS Published by the European Institute of the Mediterranean D3.2 COUNTRY REPORTS ON NATIONAL APPROACHES TO EXTREMISM Framing Violent Extremism in the MENA region and the Balkans This publication is part of the WP3 of the project, lead by the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) Editors: Corinne Torrekens and Daphné de le Vingne Reviewers: Lurdes Vidal and Jordi Moreras Editorial team: Mariona Rico and Elvira Garcia Layout: Núria Esparza ISSN: 978-84-18601-21-7 Legal deposit: In process December 2020 This publication reflects only the views of the author(s); the European Commission and Research Executive Agency are not responsible for any information it contains. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed). Framing Violent Extremism in the MENA region and the Balkans CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 EGYPT, Marco Pinfari 4 JORDAN, Barik Mhadeen, Aisha Bint Feisal, Jadranka Štikovac Clark 21 TUNISIA, Tasnim Chirchi, Intissar Kherigi, Khaoula Ghribi 47 MOROCCO, Khalid Mouna, Marouan Lahmidani, Jawad Agudal 77 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, Damir Kapidžić, Anida Dudić, 2 Veldin Kadić, Sead Turčalo 98 KOSOVO, Lulzim Peci, Agon Demjaha 116 NORTH MACEDONIA, Vlado Kambovski, Lidija Georgieva, Naum Trajanovski 142 BULGARIA, Rositsa Dzhekova 166 Framing Violent Extremism in the MENA region and the Balkans INTRODUCTION Radicalisation is a controversial social issue that is polymorphic; it is expressed in several different ways and has multiple origins, which do not always align with the theories that have emerged so far. Researchers agree that radicalisation cannot be explained outside a given social context, as its transformation moves individuals to strengthen their ideological beliefs, to develop a polarised position towards those considered antagonistic, and to reinterpret the interactions that are mutually shared. Group dynamics favour this established antagonism but the shift from this position towards the defence of extremist views or violent action may depend on personal backgrounds and trajectories as well as on structural and contextual factors. Understanding radicalisation as “the process of developing extremist ideologies and beliefs” and violent extremism as “ideologies that oppose a society’s core values and principles” (Borum, 2012)*, the project CONNEKT (CONtexts of extremism iN mEna and balKans socieTies) frames these definitions within the context of social collective dynamics. In order to draw a comprehensive picture of radicalisation drivers in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Bulgaria, the present document will focus first on national structural and contextual approaches and strategies towards radicalisation 3 and violent extremism. This will allow the project to analyse and establish patterns of difference and commonalities between MENA and Balkan countries and also across regions. More prominently, it will shed some light on the impact of the international securitisation paradigm in the regions under study. The present state of the art account will assess the weight of socio-political drivers in current approaches to radicalisation and violent extremism in the MENA region and the Balkans, particularly towards young people, and will also explore how a socially-rooted approach might fit into the current dominant paradigm of P/CVE in these regions. The following country reports set out valuable data, figures and information regarding violent extremism in their specific contexts, and provide a brief overview of the main policies, strategies and initiatives regarding P/CVE in each country. Moreover, they also identify the most relevant stakeholders in the field, both as source and target of such past and current visions and actions. This exercise will allow for the proper mapping of how target countries approach radicalisation and violent extremism and how it is framed in each one, so that the upcoming empirical research on the drivers of radicalisation and violent extremism from a macro, meso and micro level is accurately contextualised. Focusing on the perspective of the youth and on the role of community and civil society actors and particularly women prepares the ground for CONNEKT’s upcoming research on community-driven prevention against radicalisation and violent extremism. * Borum, R. (2012). Radicalisation into Violent Extremism. Journal of Strategic Security, 4(4) EGYPT Marco Pinfari, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science Framing Violent Extremism in the MENA region and the Balkans Egypt Overview COUNTRY PROFILE Government system Egypt is formally a republic that is self-identified as “Arab” – hence its official denomination as the “Arab Republic of Egypt” (ARE – Jumhuryah Misr Al-Arabiyah), which has been in use since 1971. The system of government is semi-presidential, with a directly-elected President serving – according to the latest constitutional amendments passed in 2019 – up to two six-year terms in office. The current President, Abd el-Fattah Al-Sisi, took de facto power after the 2013 coup d’état that deposed the previous President Mohammed Morsi, and was formally elected in 2014. Based on an ad personam norm included in the 2019 constitutional amendments, the duration of his current term in office has been extended to 2024, when he will be allowed to run for a third and final six-year term. After the 2011 revolution, Egypt engaged in a short-lived democratic transition that culminated in several electoral rounds in 2011 and 2012. According to international observers, these elections showed “at least some core elements of electoral democracy” (Kirkpatrick, 2012). By contrast, since the 2013 coup d’état that led to the removal of Mohammed Morsi from power, Egypt has been ruled in an “increasingly authoritarian manner” (Freedom House, 2020). According to the 2020 Freedom in the World report by Freedom House, currently in Egypt: 5 [m]eaningful political opposition is virtually non-existent, as expression of dissent can draw criminal prosecution and imprisonment. Civil liberties, including press freedom and freedom of assembly, are tightly restricted. Security forces engage in right abuses with impunity, and physical security is further undermined by terrorist violence centered in the Sinai Peninsula. Moreover, an official state of emergency was declared in Egypt in April 2017 and has been renewed every three months since. Egypt’s emergency law gives sweeping powers to Egyptian authorities to prosecute and detain individuals in breach of established legal procedures and, in several circumstances, to refer them to military rather than civilian courts. Finally, while the country as a whole is run as a centralised state with no significant authority assigned to its 27 regions or “governorates” (muhafazat), the political and military grip of the Egyptian state is significantly stronger in the populated areas of the Nile Valley and of the Delta than in the peripheries. In particular, it is often argued that the Egyptian state has “lost control” over vast parts of the Sinai Peninsula (Horton, 2017: 23) in light of the recurrence of armed attacks and episodes of guerrilla warfare since the early 2000s. Population As of May 2020, Egypt’s official population is 100.3 million (Central Agency For Public Mobilization and Statistics, 2020),1 positioning it among the 15 most populated countries in the world. The highly-symbolic 100 1 Egypt’s national statistics authority, responsible for publishing official population count and other relevant demographic and statistical data, is the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). https://www.capmas.gov.eg/HomePage.aspx. Framing Violent Extremism in the MENA region and the Balkans Egypt million mark was passed in February 2020, prompting comments from senior policy-makers that “population increase represents the biggest challenge before the [Egyptian] state,” which should be approached as an “issue of national security” (Egypt Today, 2020). The estimated annual population growth rate for 2020 is 2.28% a rate that has remained mostly constant since the 1990s. The average fertility rate is 3.29 children born/woman. Egypt’s population pyramid (Figure 1) has a broad base. In 2020, almost exactly one in three Egyptians (33.62%) is younger than 15, and more than half (51.63%) are younger than 25 (CIA, 2020). The relative size of the 0-14 age group (see Figure 2) peaked in the early 1990s – when it amounted to almost 42% of the overall population – and it has marginally but steadily declined since (CIA, 2020: 36). As of 2020, the estimated median age in the country is 24.1 years. In 2014, the median age at first marriage was 20.8 years (BASEERA, 2016), and a mother’s mean age at first birth was 22.7 years. In July 2019, an official report of the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) claimed that in 2018 32.5% of Egyptians were living below the poverty line (defined as living with less than USD1.45/day), up from 27.8% in 2015 and 16.7% in 2000 (Associated Press, 2019). The same report also stated that 6.2% were living in extreme poverty (less than USD1/day). The wide-reaching economic reforms prompted by the USD12b IMF loan received by Egypt in 2016 are widely credited for this substantial and sudden increase in the poverty rate. At the time of the 2013 coup, 55% of internet users were below the age of 24 and 71% of Facebook users 6 were aged between 15 and 29 (Pinfari, 2016: 128). As of 2018, approximately 39 million Egyptians had access to Facebook, approximately 2/3 of whom were male (Figure 3) (Reda, 2018).
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