Britain must overhaul its counter-extremism laws to ensure the authorities can tackle hate propaganda online, the UK's anti-extremism adviser said.
Sara Khan, the government-appointed envoy, wants new laws to be brought in to combat “hateful extremism” flourishing online.
She said under current laws, suspects were allowed to glorify terrorism and stoke hatred without being prosecuted.
The UK's inadequate anti-extremism laws have left authorities powerless to prosecute any successors to hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who set dozens of youngsters on the path to terrorism before he was brought to justice, Ms Khan said.
Choudary, the former figurehead of the now-banned Al Muhajiroun group, avoided prosecution for years by exploiting loopholes in the law until he was finally jailed in 2016 for encouraging support for ISIS.
The changing nature of extremism – from far-right to Islamist groups – means that the most “shocking and dangerous” extremist material can flourish, she said.
“If an Anjem Choudary figure emerged tomorrow, we would find ourselves in the same predicament,” said Ms Khan, the head of the Commission for Countering Extremism.
Authorities believe that Choudary helped persuade 70 to 100 people to become terrorists and to the frustration of police he was careful to remain on the right side of the law even as officers shut down other parts of his network.
He was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail in 2016 and released two years later, subject to strict conditions on his movements that will expire this year.
“We are at a watershed moment,” Ms Khan said. “The problem is getting worse. The government has a responsibility to address this.”
In the report, Operating with Impunity, Ms Khan cited the example of Khuram Butt, an acolyte of Choudary who became the ringleader of an attack at London Bridge that killed eight people in 2017.
Authorities were aware of Butt's views but there were no laws to stop him viewing large amounts of extremist material, including mass executions and ISIS propaganda, the report said. “Legislation outlawing possession … could have potentially allowed Butt to be picked up and prosecuted earlier,” the report said.
Since the 2005 bombings on the London transport network that killed 52 people, the UK has sought to tackle the threat but the report said “hateful extremism” has got worse. It blamed the lack of regulation for online behaviour and the use of sophisticated tactics by extremists.
Children as young as 12 are being drawn into extremist ideologies, while there is a lack of criminal sanctions against those intending to radicalise the vulnerable, it said.
An extremism bill was proposed in 2015 but never made it on to the statute book because of fears that it would have a detrimental effect on freedom of expression in the UK.
David Cameron, the prime minister at the time, said: “The fact that someone like Anjem Choudary was able to radicalise and poison the minds of so many people with such tragic consequences for so long without apparently breaking the law demonstrates that the law needs changing.”
Former UK leader of anti-terrorist policing Mark Rowley, who wrote the report, said there was now a “gaping chasm in the law” that allowed hateful extremists to operate with impunity.
He said the state of the law meant that it was legal to “hero worship” the terrorists behind the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. “The ghastliness and volumes of hateful extremist materials and behaviours in the UK at present is, even for me, truly shocking”.
The report cited the case of a suspect given the name 'Akhtar' who was arrested after the discovery of 150 ISIS propaganda videos on his personal computer hard drive.
They included graphic details of murders committed by children, beheadings and violent interrogations. They also included extracts from terrorist publications and speeches from ISIS leaders that were intended to “legitimise and glorify the terrorism and violence perpetrated” by ISIS forces.
But the report said that ‘Akhtar’ could only be prosecuted for one 29-minute video featuring a demonstration of how to kill a person with a knife and create a home-made bomb.
It met the threshold for prosecution only because it “encourages the preparation or instigation of acts of terrorist” and a clip was sent to another person via WhatsApp, the report found.
“We believe praising and glorifying terrorists and their murderous actions help create a climate that is conducive to terrorism and such extremist activity should be outlawed as part of a new legal hateful extremism framework,” the report said.
The report calls for powers banning groups who “intentionally and persistently” engage in hateful extremism.
Ms Khan said the activist group Cage – which has campaigned on behalf of detainees at Guantanamo Bay – could fall into any new law’s ambit because of its support for jailed terrorists and “highly misleading and inflammatory” comments.
Muhammad Rabbani, managing director of Cage, said that Ms Khan's commission was "calling openly for state-sponsored censorship and powers to close groups which challenge this authoritarian drift, through the use of extremely fringe examples, malicious smears and bad-faith interpretations”.
Volunteers offer workers a lifeline
Community volunteers have swung into action delivering food packages and toiletries to the men.
When provisions are distributed, the men line up in long queues for packets of rice, flour, sugar, salt, pulses, milk, biscuits, shaving kits, soap and telecom cards.
Volunteers from St Mary’s Catholic Church said some workers came to the church to pray for their families and ask for assistance.
Boxes packed with essential food items were distributed to workers in the Dubai Investments Park and Ras Al Khaimah camps last week. Workers at the Sonapur camp asked for Dh1,600 towards their gas bill.
“Especially in this year of tolerance we consider ourselves privileged to be able to lend a helping hand to our needy brothers in the Actco camp," Father Lennie Connully, parish priest of St Mary’s.
Workers spoke of their helplessness, seeing children’s marriages cancelled because of lack of money going home. Others told of their misery of being unable to return home when a parent died.
“More than daily food, they are worried about not sending money home for their family,” said Kusum Dutta, a volunteer who works with the Indian consulate.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
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What is dialysis?
Dialysis is a way of cleaning your blood when your kidneys fail and can no longer do the job.
It gets rid of your body's wastes, extra salt and water, and helps to control your blood pressure. The main cause of kidney failure is diabetes and hypertension.
There are two kinds of dialysis — haemodialysis and peritoneal.
In haemodialysis, blood is pumped out of your body to an artificial kidney machine that filter your blood and returns it to your body by tubes.
In peritoneal dialysis, the inside lining of your own belly acts as a natural filter. Wastes are taken out by means of a cleansing fluid which is washed in and out of your belly in cycles.
It isn’t an option for everyone but if eligible, can be done at home by the patient or caregiver. This, as opposed to home haemodialysis, is covered by insurance in the UAE.
Ipaf in numbers
Established: 2008
Prize money: $50,000 (Dh183,650) for winners and $10,000 for those on the shortlist.
Winning novels: 13
Shortlisted novels: 66
Longlisted novels: 111
Total number of novels submitted: 1,780
Novels translated internationally: 66
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
'Gold'
Director:Anthony Hayes
Stars:Zaf Efron, Anthony Hayes
Rating:3/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
