Religion and Violence in Russia by Oliker Olga;

Author:Oliker, Olga;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781442280649
Publisher: Center for Strategic & International Studies
Published: 2018-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

THE RESPONSE OF THE STATE AND SOCIETY

With the spread of terrorist violence becoming a growing threat, the Russian state responds to the challenge of IS’s online propaganda and its recruitment with a great variety of measures. One can separate such measures into two categories: hard approaches based on repressive measures such as crackdown against nontraditional mosques or criminal prosecutions, and soft approaches based on counternarratives.

Hard Measures: A Temporary Solution

Early efforts by the Russian government have included removing content, filtering, restricting users’ access, and controlling exchange of information. According to the National Anti-terrorism Committee, in 2016 more than 26,000 extremist and terrorist Internet resources were disclosed, double the number of 2015.108 This strategy is successful in limiting the outreach of IS radicals, but it cannot prevent their recruitment on the dark Web. As terrorists turn to encrypted communications and to the dark Web more generally, security services lose a precious access to online intelligence and exacerbate the danger to aggravate social grievances by profiling entire communities such as Salafis. Finally, removing content is particularly useful against vertical content posted on statics website, but as Klausen underlines, the hard approaches’ reach is limited due to the increasingly horizontal nature of the new media environment.109

In response to this challenge, security services in Russia have their own networks to disrupt online recruitment. Once they suspect a person’s involvement they open an individual file, develop their profile, and then oftentimes formally arrest the individual on suspicion of a different offense and try to obtain information by exerting various types of pressure.110 The new package of antiterrorism amendments adopted in 2016, the so-called Yarovaya law, will allow security services to get access to metadata stored for up to three years, thereby significantly increasing their capacities. In recent years, Russian courts have delivered hundreds of sentences for reposting extremist content on social media. This usually creates social media outcry and plays into the hands of recruiters.

Soft Measures: Online and Offline Counter-narratives

The Russian government is also aware of the necessity to ideologically confront the growing prevalence of cyberspace recruitment, but the amorphous character of the Internet and the uniqueness of every individual’s radicalization path make prevention of cyber-radicalization a challenging task. Counter-narratives are aimed at “directly or indirectly challeng[ing] extremist narratives either through ideology, logic, fact or humour.”111 They seek to educate online users and communities about the dangers of extremist material and challenge terrorist propaganda.

The security services in Ingushetia have been most creative in trying to provide online counter-narratives. A popular project called “Hard Ingush” was started by a blogger-security officer who garnered a significant following for his posts, which covered security operations and other events in the republic. Hard Ingush revealed some insider information from security services with the aim of disclosing the criminal and destructive nature of the insurgency and thereby legitimizing the actions of the law enforcement.112 The blog “Search Ingushetia” is meant to bridge communication between the greater society and law enforcement agencies in the region. It highlights stories of individuals—recruits and victims—and

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