Articles

Building plans for the first big mosque in Milan have been largely discussed. It seems that the project involves Islamic representatives who are close to the Salafist and the Muslim Brotherhood. EFD’s Giovanni Giacalone highlights a further problem concerning financing measures for the mosque....

Erdogan’s government is now far from being a model for democracy and modernity in the Islamic world. These are EFD Researcher Giovanni Giacalone’s words, which draw attention to the large scale arrest of journalists in Turkey....

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s reputation is tied to success during the Sochi Olympics and he does not want to fail. Yet the more security elements the Russian authorities put in place, the more they highlight that Russia is losing its broader battle with radical Islam—beyond Sochi....

Around 200 young people from Germany have joined the civil war in Syria, but there are thousands more who dream of going down in history as Muslim heroes....

Despite the sportive nature of the Olympic Games, the Sochi Olympics are extremely important to Vladimir Putin with regards politics. As EFD Fellow Anna Borshchevskaya shows in the below article, Western participation to these Games would only support the Russian corrupted government....

The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics are only two days away, and one of the biggest concerns still seems to be security — a concern that is more than justified in the wake of December's Volgograd bombings....

Giovanni Giacalone discusses Pisapia’s municipality’s ongoing decision to entrust Islamic representatives, who share the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology, with the building project of the first big Milanese mosque....

EFD Fellow Anna Borschchevskaya discusses the new decree issued by the Russian president Vladimir Putin to control demonstrations during the winter Olympic Games in Sochi....

In the below article, EFD’s Anna Borschchevskaya illustrates the dynamics involving a Russian trawler seized by the Senegalese military near the coast of Guinea-Bissau in January 2014....

On December 2013, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovych, respectively the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, concluded a deal: Ukraine would not sign the Association Agreement with the EU in return for a $15 billion loan from Russia....

This article is currently only available in French, and can be read here.....

EFD Senior Policy Advisor Magnus Norell discusses the potential impact of the Geneva II Conference on the bloody crisis in Syria. According to Magnus, the conference will not result into a failure only if military problems would be also tackled....

“It is almost official now that the Egyptian chief of the armed forces, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, would run for the next presidential elections.” Would General al-Sisi’s victory pave the way for democracy in Egypt? EFD Researcher Giovanni Giacalone provides a comprehensive view of the current Egyptian policy framework and the difficulties it faces to achieve democracy....

European fighters, who have been travelling to Syria in the name of Jihad, may one day come back to Europe with their Islamic fundamentalism. This scenario significantly worries Western countries, which therefore started to consider President Assad as a possible ally....

In the below article, EFD Senior Fellow Richard Rossin refers to the particular importance of democracy: “our great victory inherited from the Enlightenment”. Nevertheless, nowadays in the Middle East, recent theocracies contradict the promotion of democratic values....

In a rejoinder to Amrit Wilson's article Criminalising forced marriage in the UK: why it will not help women, Tehmina Kazi lays out the arguments for the criminalisation of forced marriage, with a particular focus on the Scottish Parliament's recent consultation on full criminalisation....

Next week an UN-backed conference on Syria begins in Geneva, attended by representatives from both Syria and the international community. EFD Senior Policy Advisor Magnus Norell explains which possible conclusions could be reached during the conference....

EFD Researcher Giovanni Giacalone discusses the possibility of introducing Islam into the education systems of European schools. Both Germany and Austria have already adopted this initiative to stem the tide of Islamic radicalisation....

Tunisia's new constitution appears to be more secular than most had expected. EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo observes that the Tunisian government seems to compromise on Islamic legislation as a strategy to avoid the recent scenario in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood has been declared a "terrorist organisation"....

According to EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo, ever since the Egyptian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist organisation" on 25th December 2013, this Islamist group has been showing its true colours by inciting violence and using media to convince their audience of their innocence....

France has witnessed an increase in anti-Semitic gestures, sparked by comedian Dieudonné’s creation of the infamous “quenelle” gesture. EFD Senior Fellow Richard Rossin observes how French politicians are showing their indignation towards this rise in anti-Semitism, but seem to be too busy complaining and fail to stimulate significant change....

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, detained in a Saudi prison since 2012 for offences against Islamic religious figures, is now being tried for apostasy. EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo condemns such a sentence and highlights how Badawi's blogging activities were merely trying to provide Saudi civil society with a voice in the midst repression....

Russian President Vladimir Putin achieved perhaps his most desired goal in 2013: He successfully positioned Russia as indispensable to resolving key international problems. And nowhere has his success been more visible than in the Syrian conflict and Iranian nuclear negotiations....

EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo writes that the decision made by the Egyptian government to regard the Muslim Brotherhood as a "terrorist organisation" has been triggered by ongoing discrimination against Christian Copts in Egypt, and that the Egyptian government understands the need to protect this religious minority....

In a monthly Operational Environment Watch commentary, EFD Fellow Anna Borshchevskaya writes that Lavrov's visit to Tehran in December appears to have strengthened Russia-Iran ties, commenting on their shared interests....

In a monthly Operational Environment Watch commentary, EFD Fellow Anna Borshchevskaya observes that Russia is not intending to loosen its grip in the South Caucasus. This decision comes soon after Armenia's joining of Russia's Customs Union....

Russia's $2 billion weapons deal with Egypt is viewed, by EFD Fellow Anna Borshchevskaya, as an attempt to renew Soviet-era ties. This deal also gives Russia the opportunity to fill the void that the U.S. is leaving as an ally for Egypt, thus increasing its influence in the Middle East....

This article is currently only available in French, and can be read here.....

In the run-up to the Geneva peace talks on Syria scheduled for early November, mainstream Russian press typically provided brief dry reports on the Syrian conflict, similar to the accompanying excerpt from Lenta.ru (Ribbon) from 22 October. The article quotes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stating that he doubted the talks will be attended by “forces representing the Syrian people,” and expressed a decision to run for Syria’s presidency i...

Since 2011, large waves of Europeans have been travelling to Syria in the name of Jihad. EFD Senior Fellow Valentina Colombo discusses the influence of preachers such as Shaikh R. al-Nabulsi on the growing phenomenon of European fighters in Syria....

  This article is currently only available in Italian, and can be read here.  ....

EFD fellow Anna Borshchevskaya notes in her latest op-ed for Al-Arabiya that "Diplomacy cannot succeed so long as the Iranian regime is driven by an ideology that, at its core, is in an existential conflict with liberal democratic values". Video footage captured by Syrian rebels suggests that Iran’s involvement in the Syrian conflict goes beyond sending advisors to assist Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The BBC reported on 30th October that th...

EFD fellow Anna Borshchevskaya notes in her latest op-ed for Al-Arabiya that "Diplomacy cannot succeed so long as the Iranian regime is driven by an ideology that, at its core, is in an existential conflict with liberal democratic values". Video footage captured by Syrian rebels suggests that Iran’s involvement in the Syrian conflict goes beyond sending advisors to assist Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The BBC reported on 30th October that...

EFD fellow Anna Borshchevskaya notes in her latest op-ed for Al-Arabiya that "Diplomacy cannot succeed so long as the Iranian regime is driven by an ideology that, at its core, is in an existential conflict with liberal democratic values". Video footage captured by Syrian rebels suggests that Iran’s involvement in the Syrian conflict goes beyond sending advisors to assist Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The BBC reported on 30th October th...