In the media
February 04, 2025
On Tuesday, February 4th, the Australian radio ABC published an interview with Tanya Mehra, Senior Research Fellow and Programme Lead for the Rule of Law Responses to Terrorism programme at ICCT. In the interview, Mehra explored the anti-Semitic attacks in France, the role played by foreign interference (e.g. from Russia), and the goals behind such interference.
"They would try to destabilise a country and increase polarisation, especially in countries that have been and still are supporting Ukraine, that is one example. Another example is the disinformation campaigns by Russia regarding the fact that Sweden has been supporting the Quran burnings. There it was very clearly to disrupt Sweden of joining the NATO. So they were spreading these disinformation campaigns in several different languages, including Arabic, to create a more hostile environment".
Furthermore, "for Australia there are some lessons to be learned. One is to try to get more consistent data on both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia", she said. "It would not be useful to frame it as terrorism, because then there would be a shift from a discriminatory nature of these kind of attacks, and you would focus on spreading the fear among the population instead, which is often not the intent with these attacks".
Listen to the full interview here:
