European police and judicial authorities join forces to dismantle online terrorist propaganda
Between November 21 and 24, police and judicial authorities in Europe launched a joint activity against the so-called Islamic State (IS) to dismantle online activities of this terrorist organization.
The aforementioned action coordinated by the EU Europol Internet Referral Unit supported by Eurojust was carried out by 12 Member States and 9 online servers. This led to a total of more than 26,000 content articles supporting EI. This process is based on what Europol refers to as terrorist propaganda cataloged for online servers, who are responsible for evaluating and establishing any potential breach in their terms of service in order to ensure compliance with the law and freedom of expression.
The operation was led by the Belgian Counter-Terror Investigation Court and the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office, together with the Belgian Federal Judicial Police of East-Flanders.
Within the framework of this operation, the Civil Guard carried out an arrest in Spain of an individual suspected of being part of the core of ISIS online terrorist propaganda disseminators. This arrest was carried out in coordination with the Central Instruction Court number 3 and 5 and the Office of the Prosecutor of the National Court.
Previous Efforts
This last action is connected with a series of previous joint efforts with the objective of demolishing various communication assets of this terrorist organization.
In August 2016, a first action was carried out against the AMAQ mobile application and its web infrastructure. This action forced the propagandists to build a more complex and secure infrastructure to prevent future actions of the police forces.
In June 2017, a second coup conducted by the Civil Guard and supported by Europol, Eurojust and the US aimed at part of the assets and infrastructure of the new agency's website.
The servers intervened by the Civil Guard allowed the identification of radicalized individuals in 133 countries, and more than 200 million accesses to the propaganda content of the so-called EI were detected by 52,000 potential users.
