Nobody seems to be asking, but nonetheless it's becoming very
noticeable that there hasn't been "another" Islamist attack on the US
since Sept 11 2001, though the alleged causes or reasons for the
attack are much more serious now than they were then. - K
--
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/WarOnTerror/europe_islamic_ter
rorism.php
Global Issues
SpinWatch notes how small (statistically) Islamist terrorism is in
Europe, despite prevailing views otherwise. You can see the original
article at http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/4236/29/.
The statistical invisibility of Islamist 'terrorism' in Europe
By David Miller
SpinWatch
May 23, 2007
New figures from Europol, the European police agency, reveal that
Islamist terror attacks in Europe constituted 0.2% or all 'terrorism'
throughout the continent in 2006.* Unsurprisingly, there has been
little in the media about this interesting figure in the month since
it was published.
In their first report of this nature-European Terrorism Situation and
Trend Report 2007-Europol reports that across the EU there were 498
terrorist attacks in 2006. These include:
* 424 "ethno-nationalist and separatist" (mostly in France and Spain)
* 55 "left-wing and anarchist" (mainly Greece , Italy, Spain and Germany)
* 1 failed Islamist terrorist attack (in Germany, plus two more
attempts allegedly foiled in Denmark and the UK)
* 1 right-wing terrorist attack (in Poland)
The figures appear to over report left and anarchist "terror" by
categorising some political demonstrations which result in damage to
property as "terrorism". On Germany it reports that "the G8 Summit
2007 that still has to be held has already been the target of
left-wing and anarchist terrorists." The report also appears to under
report "right wing" and neo-fascist violence since this is as the
report states: "mainly investigated as right-wing extremism and not
as right-wing terrorism". The report only includes rightwing and
animal rights political violence as terrorism if reported as such by
member states.
The report does also note that the 0.2% of attacks undertaken by
Islamists resulted in fully half the 706 arrests in the EU being of
Muslims. The UK itself has seen hundreds of arrests on trumped up
charges which are later shown to be false and often propagandist.
Indeed one of the two alleged 'foiled' attacks in the figures is the
much heralded transatlantic bomb plot in the UK which has certainly
adversely affected millions of air passengers. However, it does
appear that this plot existed much more in the minds of the security
establishment than in reality.
I wondered how well the pattern of media reporting conformed to the
pattern of offences or the pattern of arrests. In 2006 the National
press in the UK carried 26, 577 reports which mentioned the word
"terrorist" or "terrorism".^ Of these 7,620 also referred to "Islam",
"Islamist" or "Muslim". In other words the media reported Islamist
violence out of all proportion to the number of attacks. This is
hardly helpful to those trying the resist the wave of islamophobia
emanating from sections of the police and from the intelligence
agencies and politicians. Nor does it give much hope for muslims
under attack throughout the UK.
Notes
*Thanks to Eric Herring for drawing these figures to my attention.
^Figures from searches conducted on Lexis-nexis press database.
Europol, 'First Terrorism Situation and Trend Report of Europol
released' News Release, The Hague, 10 April 2007.
http://www.europol.eu.int/index.asp?page=news&news=pr070410.htm
European Terrorism Situation and trend Report 2007
http://www.europol.eu.int/publications/TESAT/TESAT2007.pdf
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