01 January 2016
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Belgium charges top ‘jihadist expert’ over false affidavit for detainee (Al Arabiya, link): "Belgian prosecutors said Monday they have arrested a high-profile expert on extremist fighters and charged him with providing a suspected extremist with a false affidavit that he was on a de-radicalization course.
Montasser AlDe’emeh runs a centre in Brussels’ gritty Molenbeek district - where several of those who carried out November’s Paris attacks lived - that aims to prevent young Belgians from going to fight in Syria and also help reintegrate those who do so on their return."
Dutch to push intelligence sharing after missed signals in Paris (Al Arabiya, link): "The Netherlands will push for greater sharing of intelligence data, including lists of suspected foreign fighters, at a gathering of global counter-terrorism officials on Monday.
The Dutch, who hold the rotating European Union presidency, circulated a draft outlining the objective to roughly 250 delegates of the Global Counter Terrorism Forum (GCTF) and Anti-ISIS Coalition meeting in The Hague, an official said."
EU: First-ever EU-wide cyber-security rules
backed by Internal Market Committee (EP press release, pdf): "Firms supplying essential services, e.g. for energy, transport, banking and health, or digital ones, such as search engines and cloud computing, will have to take action to improve their ability to withstand cyber-attacks under new rules approved by Internal Market MEPs on Thursday. These rules, informally agreed by MEPs and Council negotiators on 7 December, were approved by 34 votes to 2. They now need to be endorsed by the Council and the full Parliament."
EU: Top 5 Tech – All you need to know about the Dutch EU Presidency (vieuws, link): "In this special briefing, leading journalist Jennifer Baker picks out the Top 5 Tech priorities that will be discussed by the European institutions under the Dutch EU presidency:" Covers: encryption, smart borders, safe harbour, the digital single market and spectrum reform.
Turkey rounds up academics who signed petition denouncing attacks on Kurds (The Guardian, link): "Turkey has been accused of violating academic freedom by rounding up university teachers who signed a petition denouncing military operations against Kurds in the southeast of the country.
Police have detained at least 12 academics over alleged “terror propaganda” after they signed a petition together with more than 1,400 others calling for an end to Turkey’s “deliberate massacre and deportation of Kurdish people”."
UK: Film Screening, 18 February 2016: Leave to Remain with QA from Director Bruce Goodison (Queen Mary University of London, link): "Leave to Remain is a provocative coming of age story about a young Afghan boy who’s arrival sets off a chain of events that jeopardises the future of those closest to him. Unwittingly he plays an unimaginable game of chance where winning and getting Leave to Remain to stay in the UK is not always what it seems, and all hope hinges on just how good a story he can tell."
UK: Phone Hackers: Britain's Secret Surveillance (Vice News, link): "IMSI catchers are portable surveillance tools used for spying on thousands of phones in a targeted area, tracking their location and even intercepting calls, messages, and data. They are supposed to help identify serious criminals, but cannot operate without monitoring innocent people too.
UK police have IMSI catchers, but they refuse to tell the public how and when they are used. This has privacy campaigners worried. And, even if the state is using them sparingly, what if criminals also have access to the technology?
VICE News searches London for IMSI catchers, then goes shopping at a state security fair, and finally finds a shady technology company who'll sell us the spy gear."
Worried about the return of fascism? Six things a dissenter can do in 2016 (OpenDemocracy, link): "Commentary misses the point: the legitimacy of Trump or Le Pen comes not from the sudden appeal of a new brand of right-wing populism, but their legitimisation by mainstream politics."
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