By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 16 July 2023
Did Russia Ever Start a Democratic Transition? Can It?
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Tag Archives: far-Right terrorism
The Bolshevik Assassination Campaign Against the Russian Royal Family
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 15 January 2022
The Russian Imperial Family: Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, Anastasia, Tsesarevich Alexei, and Tatiana. Taken in Crimea, 1913.
Who Are The Victims of “Radicalisation”?
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 20 April 2021
The rise of far-Right extremism in the West, in the United States in particular, has been one of the major media stories since at least 2016. Think tanks have gotten in on the action, and in due course official institutions followed the lead. There has been a significant element of moral panic about this, a result of a search for explanation by liberal ruling classes hit with disorientating political developments, above all in the Anglo-American world, with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as President. Christian Picciolini’s book, Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism (2020), is very much a product of this mood of doom among Western liberals. Continue reading
An Update On The Anti-Assad Imam Killed In London
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on April 13, 2015
Abdul Hadi Arwani
In Brent, northwest London, in the evening of April 12, a 46-year-old man was arrested as part of the ongoing investigation into the April 7 murder of the Syrian-born imam, Abdul Hadi Arwani, a long-time opponent of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Writing about the murder of Arwani last week, I noted that the available evidence suggested the motivations of the murderer(s) could be:
- Financial: related to Arwani’s business dealings as the owner of his construction company
- Other local or personal
- Far-Right anti-Muslim
- Intra-Islamist: Arwani had been the director at the Salafist An-Noor Mosque and was himself clearly an Islamist, but Arwani was against the Islamic State (ISIS), for example, which might have made him enemies among some congregants
- Agents of the Assad regime, conceivably with the complicity of Iran and Russia
Those options still stand, but some important updates over the weekend have helped alter the relative likelihood of each. Continue reading
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