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LONDON: Switzerland is rarely linked with Islamic extremism, but an investigation into an alleged Al-Qaeda propaganda network highlights emerging tensions.
Three senior members of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) have been charged with making propaganda films for Al-Qaeda, Swiss prosecutors said on Thursday.
The Office of the Attorney-General filed an indictment against the head of the culture production department at the ICCS for allegedly making two videos in Syria with a leading Al-Qaeda member.
ICCS spokesman Abdel Azziz Qaasim Illi, who told Reuters that he was one of those charged, disregarded the case as a “political show trial” and accused authorities of misunderstanding the video.
A statement from the state prosecutor said it alleged that “the accused offered the leading Al-Qaeda member in question a prominent multilingual multimedia platform from which to advantageously portray and promote both himself and the ideology of Al-Qaeda.”
Qaasim Illi said the interview on the video was with a senior Saudi cleric who denied having links to Al-Qaeda and claimed the indictments were “clearly politically motivated.”
The ICCS, which has around 3,000 members and describes itself as the largest Muslim organization in Switzerland, released a statement naming the other two men charged as its chairman Nicolas Blancho and its head of cultural production, Naim Cherni.
There are currently around 60 criminal proceedings linked to Muslim extremists being pursued by the Office of the Attorney General in Switzerland, a country that has seen comparably little terrorist-related activity during a spate of attacks across Europe.
Recent attacks in countries including France, Britain, Spain and Belgium have contributed to a rising sense of unease in Switzerland and the country is pursuing new measures to prevent radicalization and bolster the legal framework to combat terrorism.
Since 2013, the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) has warned of a heightened terror threat.
“Up to now, we haven’t had any terrorist attacks but it is still a concern for us. Switzerland is in the heart of Europe so we are also part of this — we’re not excluded,” said Lulzana Musliu, a spokesperson for the Federal Office of Police (fedpol) in Switzerland.
“We have a different history from France and the UK because of our neutrality but we also have people who are radicalized and have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State (Daesh).”
Last year, TETRA, a federal intelligence force set up in 2014 to monitor “jihadi travelers” passing through Switzerland, identified almost 500 people accused of spreading propaganda online.
“This story highlights the value to terrorist groups of online propaganda to recruit and incite violence and the importance of doing more to force companies like Google-owned YouTube to find and remove videos glorifying terrorism more quickly,” said David Ibsen, executive director, Counter Extremism Project.
Though Switzerland has been largely unscathed by terrorist attacks in recent years, there have been reports of key Al-Qaeda figures using the country as a temporary base, including Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who is believed to have lived there for a period.
“The reality is that these days the nature of Europe and the communities that are spread across it with the cross-border links that exist make it naive to think of national problems anymore,” said Raffaello Pantucci, director of International Security Studies at London-based think tank Rusi.
Switzerland, which is not actively involved in the international terrorist campaign, may have been spared so far because “its historical neutrality makes it an odd target,” Pantucci said.
“There are neighboring countries that are probably more attractive targets as specific enemies of the caliphate,” he added.
Yet some commentators indicated that factors thought to have exempted Switzerland so far may be eroding.
In an article published last year, Fabien Merz, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zürich and author of Switzerland and Jihadists Foreign Fighters said that the number of foreign fighters hailing from Switzerland challenged the assumption that the country’s particularities make it an exception when it came to radicalization.
He said: “Switzerland, which throughout recent history could be considered somewhat of a “special case” in terms of insulation from terrorist threats, has seen its situation change since the rise of Daesh (Islamic State) and the upsurge of jihadi radicalization throughout the world.”