This group of organisations emerged mostly as a response to the 9/11 attacks. Initially a very active international network, their influence and level of activity has dwindled in recent years, and in some cases ceased entirely. However, the conferences they have hosted and contributed to, together with the networks they created, have been a powerful crucible for counter-jihad ideas and for some, a route into the mainstream.
International Center for Western Values (ICWV)
European Freedom Initiative (EFI)
International Freedom Alliance (IFA)
International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA)
International Free Press Society (IFPS)
Stop Islamization of Nations (SION)
Faith Freedom International (FFI)
Knights Templar International (KTI)
American Freedom Alliance (AFA)
The International Center for Western Values is an international group based in Amsterdam whose stated aim is “exposing and fighting antidemocratic ideologies”. However, the organisation is defined by the anti-Muslim ideologies of its key figures Bat Ye’or and Hans Jansen.
The ICWV had held two international debates in Amsterdam on ‘the place of Islam’ in Western societies. The first took place on October 13 2013 and the second on 1 December 2014. These were organised in collaboration with (publishing house) Uitgeverij Van Praag.
The organisation also publishes and sells books by prominent figures in the international counter-jihad network. Its operations are mainly confined to Europe.
The ICWV’s website is still active as of January 2018.
Director: René van Praag
Board of advisors: Bat Ye’or, Hans Jansen
Friends of ICWV include:
Thierry Baudet, Bas Belder, Ruthie Blum, Frits Bolkestein, John Bolton, Diederik Boomsma, Andrew G. Bostom, Paul Cliteur, Awi Cohen, Leon de Winter, Alfred Edelstein, Fjordman, Pamela Geller, David Goldman, Mark S. Golub, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Theodor Holman, Hans Jansen, Nico Kamp, Mordechai Kedar, Isi Leibler, Zvi Mazel, Joost Niemöller, John Podhoretz, Chris Rutenfrans, Sam van Rooy, Wim van Rooy, Nahed Selim, Robert Spencer, Kees van der Staaij, Annelies van der Veer, Henk Vreekamp, Bat Ye’or, Efraim Zuroff.
The EFI was founded in September 2010 as a pan-European umbrella coalition of anti-Muslim and counter-jihadist organisations in Europe, including the English Defence League and various national Defence Leagues across Europe, plus Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), Politically Incorrect News (Germany), Citizen’s Movement Pax Europa (Germany), the Gates of Vienna site, and the International Civil Liberties Alliance.
The EFI co-ordinates the activities of the various Defence Leagues. It organised the launch rally of the European Defence League in Amsterdam on 30 October 2010 and helped co-ordinate the European rally and re-launch of the European Defence League in Arhus, Denmark on 31 March 2012, where the EFI was represented by the current ICLA president, Alain Wagner.
In August 2012, the European Freedom Initiative organised a large counter-jihad demonstration in Stockholm. Representatives from Stop Islamization of Nations (SION), Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), the English Defence League (EDL), The Q Society (Australia) and allied groups met to speak at the “first worldwide ’ action” in Stockholm.
The European Freedom Initiative website is active as of January 2018, as its Facebook page is active and as of January 2018 has over 9,500 Likes.
In July 2010, Dutch politician Geert Wilders announced his intention to start an international/pan-European, anti-Muslim movement called the International Freedom Alliance. It would initially cover France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Initially, it received support from René Stadtkewitz (Chairman, die Freiheit) and the Politically Incorrect (PI) blog and network.
Wilders’ goal was to establish an international alliance to end all immigration from Muslim countries to the West and a complete ban on Sharia law. However the project stalled during Wilders’ subsequent trial, when he was charged with criminally insulting religious and ethnic groups and inciting hatred and discrimination (he was found not guilty in June 2011).
Wilders attempted to relaunch the IFA in 2014, which he affiliated to his radical right party, the Party of Freedom. He spoke about the IFA at a speech on 2 November 2014 in the Danish Parliament at an event commemorating the 10th anniversary of filmmaker Theo Van Gough’s murder.
He said: “The IFA aims to be a network of resistance fighters in all the countries threatened by Islam”. Despite Wilders’ grand claims there is little evidence of the IFA being active in recent years and its website is currently down.
At the heart of the counter-jihad movement is the ICLA, an international network of individuals and organisations spanning over 20 countries across Europe, the United States, Canada, India, Australia and New Zealand. Key players in the organisation include Christine Brim and Jean Michel Clement (aka Alain Wagner).
The organisation has operated under several identities. It was initially founded on 26 September 2006 as the 910 Group (‘910’ signifying the day before the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2011). It was renamed the Center for Vigilant Freedom (CVF) on 1 March 2007 and then later renamed as the International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA) on 16 May 2009.
The International Civil Liberties Alliance was launched a second time on 1 June 2012, as a Swiss NGO based in Basel, which was publicly relaunched in the European Parliament in July 2012.
However, since late 2014 the organisation has become increasingly inactive, except for its participation at OSCE conferences. The website has been inactive since June 2016.
The Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organisation, has served as a one of the most important venues for the international counter-jihad movement. It has not only provided a meeting and networking space, but also a platform that legitimises counter-jihad ideology in a formal conference atmosphere.
Transatlantic counter-jihad activists first participated in OSCE conferences in 2009 by attending, submitting papers and hosting side events at the OSCE’s annual Human Dimension and Implementation Meeting (HDIM).
The counter-jihad movement believes it has a great impact upon decisions made at these conferences. It does so by attending as an alliance with a view to having a greater influence during round table discussions. This has allowed the group to raise controversial issues and influence the nature of papers published as a result of the conferences.
The ICLA has used OSCE events to argue for the banning of the term ‘Islamophobia’; to claim that Islam promotes violence against women; that Islam is not a religion but a political ideology; that criminalising ‘hate speech’ limits truth; and for cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad to be publicly displayed.
OSCE meetings have provided a vital meeting place for this network, which alongside OSCE events holds more informal private meetings to discuss its direction moving forwards.
Counter-jihad activists attending OSCE events include a small group of familiar faces, such as Alain Wagner, Chris Knowles, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Liz Schmidt, Felix Strüning, Henrik Ræder Clausen, Valerie Price, Ann Marchini, Ned May, and Stephen Coughlin.
The ICLA has organised a counter-jihad presence at the OSCE in Vienna, July 2009; Warsaw, September/October 2009; Vienna November 2009; Vienna November 2011; Warsaw, September/October 2012; Vienna, July 2013; Warsaw, September 2013; Warsaw, September/October 2014; and Vienna again in May 2015.
During the May 2015 meeting in Vienna counter-jihad activists fell out with the OSCE. They claimed that their increasingly wild ideas weren’t taken seriously due to the OSCE enforcing the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s “narrative” and that panels included “no-one from a sensible European country”. Sabaditsch-Wolff claimed that “left wing extremists and to some extent, Islamist, (sic) groups are granted undue opportunities for intimidation, threats and open violence against public manifestations, discouraging participation by the average citizen, and creates undue security challenges for organizers of fully democratic and peaceful public events”.
The 2017 OSCE conference in Warsaw was attended by representatives from ACT! for America, Christopher Hull and Clare Lopez from the Center for Security Policy, and Artur Faflik-Brooks from the ICLA.
In 2013, the ICLA’s ‘counter-jihad conference’ took place in Warsaw, by no coincidence the same setting as the OSCE’s annual HDIM event, allowing for overlapping participation.
Notable participants included:
Including:
International Free Press Society (IFPS)The International Free Press Society is an umbrella campaigning organisation for a network of so-called ‘free press [speech]’ societies across the world.
Launched in February 2009 by the Danish Free Press Society, it has supported the work of several high-profile anti-Muslim writers and politicians, including Ibn Warraq, Daniel Pipes, Geert Wilders, Bruce Bawer and Henryk Broder.
The society awards the annual Sappho Award for the “journalist who combines excellence in his work with courage and a refusal to compromise”. It has been awarded to Kurt Westergaard (the Danish cartoonist who drew the infamous Muhammad cartoons), Flemming Rose (the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper which initially published the cartoons), Mark Steyn, Rebel Media founder Ezra Levant and British journalist Melanie Phillips, and in 2016 Roger Scruton and in 2017 Karoly Németh.
The society launched a petition and defence fund to support right-wing populist politician Geert Wilders in January 2009 and co-sponsored his speaking tour of major cities across the United States from February-April 2009.
On 5 February 2013 a gunman tried to shoot the IFPS president Lars Hedegaard (he was unharmed).
In 2014, the International Free Press Society sponsored a conference in memoriam of controversial filmmaker Theo Van Gough. Panellists included IFPS president Hedegaard; American counter-jihad figurehead Daniel Pipes; Robert Redeker, a controversial French writer and philosophy teacher; anti-Muslim artists and cartoonists Lars Vilks and Kurt Westegaard; and Geert Wilders.
The International Free Press Society has been a key component in the international counter-jihad network, reaffirming strong ties between the organised anti-Muslim movement in America and those in Europe.
The Swedish and Danish groups ran a newspaper and news website called Dispatch International which was founded in 2012 and edited by Ingrid Carlqvist and Hedegaard. Bjorn Larsen was co-founder. Initially it was a printed newspaper but later turned into an online newspaper only. This was discontinued in May 2016.
Founder and President: Lars Hedegaard (President, Danish Free Press Society, Editor Dispatch International)
Co-Vice Presidents: Dr Paul Beliën (Director, Islamist Watch and Founder Editor, The Brussels Journal blog, advisor to Geert Wilders and married to Vlaams Belang MP Alexandra Colen) and Diana West (Columnist, The Washington Times), since 2009
Secretary: Christine Brim (Chief Operating Officer, Center for Security Policy), since 2009
Treasurer: Bjørn Larsen (President, IFPS – Canada), since 2009
Outreach Co-ordinator: Ned May (aka Edward S. May and Baron Bodissey, Founder, Gates of Vienna blog), since 2009.
Founder: Lars Hedegaard (President, International Free Press Society)
President: Katrine Winkel Holm (Founder, anti-Muslim blog Islamkritisk Netværk i Folkekirken)
Founded in 2004, the Danish Free Press Society is the parent organisation of the International Free Press Society headed by Lars Hedegaard. The organisation arose following the Danish Muhammad cartoon crisis and perceived strains it put upon free speech. The society is closely connected to the counter-jihad movement.
Sappho is the magazine of The Free Press Society in Denmark. The editors-in-chief are Katrine Winkel Holm and Lars Hedegaard. The co-editors are Morten Uhrskov Jensen, Mogens Rukov and Farshad Kholghi.
The Society presents an annual Free Press Award, the Sappho Award. In 2017 it was awarded to Karoly Németh, a Danish lawyer and member of the board, and in 2016 to Roger Scruton. In 2015 it was presented to cartoonist Lars Vilks, in recognition of his Muhammad drawings. Ezra Levant, founder of Rebel Media, was given the award in 2014 and in 2013 it went to Thilo Sarrazin. In 2012 it went to Olga Romanova, a Russian journalist, and before that in 2011 to American researcher and director of American Center for Democracy, Rachel Ehrenfeld.
In 2010 the Sappho Award was given to Mark Steyn, Canadian-born writer and columnist, and in 2009 to Melanie Philips, British journalist and commentator. In 2008 it was awarded to the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, and in 2007 to Jyllands-Posten’s editor Flemming Rose.
The Society organises frequent lectures and events. Speakers for the Danish Free Press Society have included Douglas Murray, Ibn Warraq, Daniel Pipes, Geert Wilders, Henryk Broder, Bruce Bawer, Samia Labidi, Elisabeth Schemla, Shabana Rehman, Bat Ye ́or, Chahdortt Djavann, Roy Brown, Jørgen Bæk Simonsen, Asger Aamund, Tøger
Seidenfaden and Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen.
It co-organised ‘The Fate of Infidels in Muslim-Dominated Societies’ conference in Copenhagen on 26 September 2009.
In 2016 the Society co-organised the Dangerous Words 250 conference in Stockholm.
In January 2017 it organised a conference about free speech and the United Nations Human Rights Council in January 2017 with among others Roy W. Brown.
The Society published counter-jihad blogger Fjordman’s book, Vitne til Vanvidd (Witness to Madness) in 2015.
President: Pamela Geller
Vice-President: Robert Spencer
SION was founded in January 2012 as an umbrella network of counter-jihadist organizations across Europe and the United States, including Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). SION has pledged to publicize “the names of politicians, academics, journalists, artists and their networks that promote the Islamization of western policy and culture”.
The American arm of the organisation, Stop Islamization of America, was refused a trademark in January 2011 after the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the name was disparaging to Muslims. After Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer appealed the decision, the trademark was again denied in May 2014.
In August 2012 SION, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), the English Defence League (EDL), the European Freedom Initiative, Faith Freedom International, European Defence Leagues, Freiheit Bavaria and the Q Society of Australia, converged in Stockholm for the Global Counter Jihad rally, together with the European Freedom Initiative.
Speakers included:
The September 11th conference (International Freedom Congress) hosted by Spencer american and Geller in New York in 2012 bought together speakers from the international Islamophobic movement, including Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson), then of the English Defence League (EDL); lawyer David Yerushalmi; plus David Storobin, then a New York State Senator who sparked controversy after being photographed in an Israeli army uniform. Ingrid Carlqvist and Lars Hedegaard from the International Free Press Society also participated, together with Lars Vilk who held a speech at the conference.
SION organised the first International Symposium on Liberty and Islam in Australia together with the Q Society, in Melbourne in March 2014. Speakers included Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, Babette Francis, Bill Muehlenberg, Debbie Robinson, Dr Mordechai Kedar, Gavin Boby, Ashraf Ramelah, Nonie Darwish, Anders Gravers, Dr John Perkins, Bernard Gaynor, Michael Burd, and Kirralie Smith.
The list of Board of Advisors for SION has included Dr. Ali Sina, ex-Muslim author and founder of FaithFreedom.org; Dr. Wafa Sultan, the ex-Muslim human rights activist and author; German pro-freedom activist Stefan Herre of the blog Politically Incorrect; Israeli author Dr. Mordechai Kedar; Hindu nationalist Babu Suseelan and Anders Gravers of Stop Islamisation of Europe.
At present the SION network seems to be in decline and is not particularly active. As of October 2018 the SION Facebook page has over 13,000 Likes but now does little more than regularly post articles from Geller’s website.
Co-founders: Pamela Geller, Stephen Gash
Leader: Anders Gravers Pedersen
SIOE was co-founded by Pamela Geller, Stephen Gash, and headed by Anders Gravers Pedersen, who also heads the active Stop Islamization of Denmark (SIAD). Samantha Harron runs SIOE in the UK, Merete Hodne and Kjersti Margrethe Adelheid Gilje in Norway and Antonella Bertelli in Italy, and Michael Stürzenberger the leader of SIOE Germany.
Its mission is to campaign to raise awareness in Europe about the supposed ‘Islamisation’ of the continent through the “mass Islamic immigration plan of the Euro-Med Partnership”, warning that the Mediterranean Sea would become a “domestic Eurabian sea”.
This network spans the continent and holds infrequent demonstrations against Islam. It has demonstrated against halal regulations several times at the European Parliament in Brussels. A planned demonstration in 2014 was banned by the Mayor of Brussels.
In June 2011 SIOE and SIOA organised a demonstration and conference in Strasbourg against mosque and minaret construction in Europe (speakers included Pierre Cassen, head of Riposte Laïque, Christine Tasin of Résistance Républicaine, Fabrice Robert, the leader of Bloc Identitaire, and Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, the leaders of SIOA, joined by Anders Gravers leader of SIOE, Pavel Chernev of SIOE Bulgaria and Stephen Gash the leader of SIOE England.
The network also planned a transatlantic ‘Anti-Islamization Conference’ in Strasbourg, France, on 2 July 2011 but the event was cancelled after the Strasbourg authorities told SIOA and SIOE organisers that they could not guarantee their safety. Efforts were made to hold a demonstration nearby, but the authorities still considered security to be too much of an issue.
In January 2015 SIAD started a campaign called ‘No more Islam! Crack Islam!’ hosting 25 demonstrations in 25 cities across Denmark in an attempt to mobilise participation in a final demonstration outside parliament in Copenhagen.
In Slovakia in June 2015, Marian Kotleba, an ultra-right radical and governor of one of the country’s self-rule regions (who has publicly stated support for the wartime Nazi-controlled Slovak state), led a large protest of several thousand people against the refugee inflow in the EU using the name ‘Stop Islamization of Europe’. Speakers included Jirí Fronek, deputy chairman of the Czech far-right, extra-parliamentary workers, the Party of Social Justice (DSSS).
SIOE has links to the anti-Muslim movement, Pegida, with SIOE banners being seen at Pegida demos in Berlin and the SIOE website advertised Pegida events in the UK.
The SIOE website has been inactive since September 2016 when it announced the addition of a Serbian branch under the control of Bratislav Zivkovic. The post also announced the death of SIOE Bulgaria leader Pavel Chernev, who was then replaced by two shared presidents Jivko Ivanov and Vladimir Simeonov and the appointment of Petur Klein as president of SIOE Faroe Islands.
As of January 2018 SIOE still has a closed Facebook group with over 16,000 members.
Founder and Organiser: Anders Gravers
Prominent activist: Peder Hansen Bering
SIAD was founded in June 2005 as an anti-immigration and anti-Muslim organisation, claiming to campaign against the “Islamisation of Denmark”. Between 2005- 2010 it ran as a political party, taking 1.2% of the vote in Aalborg in 2005 and receiving just 73 votes in the 2007 General Election.
In spring 2007 SIAD allied with the Free Danish Nationalists, which had been started by the former spokesman for the Danish Front and the Odense-based organisation Free Denmark, with Michael Ellegaard, to form the anti-Muslim network, Anti-Jihad Europe.
This network has since disbanded.
In 2010 SIAD handed over its political work to SIOE, which became a registered party in Denmark. But in 2013 SIAD ran again in local elections in Denmark and in 2015 it joined forces with Fremskridspartiet (the Progress Party).
The group holds regular protests against mosques, halal food and what it sees as the “Islamisation of Denmark”, many now in conjunction with Pegida. In February 2013, the group planned a protest in February 2013 outside a school in Copenhagen under the slogan “we are all Jews”.
In May 2015 SIAD that it would exhibit the controversial Danish Muhammad cartoons in the Progress Party tent at the Folkemødet festival. However, the Progress Party cancelled the event at the last minute. In June 2015 Anders Gravers announced plans to display the Garland Muhammad cartoons in the Royal Library in Copenhagen as part of an exhibition tour of Madrid, Paris and London, clashing with the plans of a London Muhammad cartoon exhibition organised by Anne Marie Waters. Gravers stated that he would not stand in Waters’ way if she planned to go ahead with her exhibition.
On 26 September 2015 the exhibition was held in an open square in the centre of Copenhagen. The Garland cartoons were displayed on banners shown in two-hour rotations.
The group had 5,300 Facebook members before it was deleted in July 2015.
Stop Islamisation of Denmark demonstrated together with other groups on the Danish/German borders four times in the autumn/winter of 2015 and demanded the closing of borders to Muslim migrants. The demonstrations continued throughout 2016, with the organisation aiming to demonstrate every month.
In the winter of 2016 SIAD and Dansk Modstand og Selvforsvar (DMS Danish Resistance and Self Defence group) organised vigilante groups which patrolled the border between Denmark and Germany to stop “illegal” immigrants from entering.
The organisation’s website is regularly updated.
Leader: Stig Andersen
Founded on 16 February 2008 as SIOE Norge, the group evolved out of the Aksjonskomiteen mot bønnerop (‘Action Committee against prayer calling’), which was set up in 2000 to protest against a request by the Islamic Cultural Centre to broadcast the call to prayer over loudspeakers at a mosque in Oslo.
In 2011, the organisation claimed to be the largest “stop Islamisation” group in Europe, claiming over 3,000 members (13,000 on Facebook) mainly based in Oslo and Stavanger.
It later developed further into Forum mot Islamisering (FOMI – Forum Against Islamisation) which was founded on 11 September 2000 and renamed SIAN on 26 November 2008.
Several members have links to the Democrats, a splinter group from the Progress Party, and to Christian conservative organisations. Several activists from the Kristent Samlingsparti (KSP – Christian People’s Party) attended the European counter-jihad rally re-launch of the European Defence League in Århus, Denmark on 31 March 2012, wearing KSP t-shirts, SIAN badges and brandishing flags.
In 2012 SIAN broke with the mother organisation Stop Islamisation of Europe after then-leader Arne Tumyr refused to cooperate with Norwegian Defence League. Former board member Kaspar Birkeland formed a new organisation, SION, that is now associated with SIOE.
The new SION was launched in December 2012 at a demonstration organised by SIOE Norway and the Norwegian Defence League, attended by Ander Gravers. Around 50 anti-Muslim activists attended. The group continues to hold demonstrations, drawing around 30-40 people. SIAN has openly supported the counter-jihadist blogger Fjordman.
On 3 October 2015 SION held a meeting with Ingrid Carlqvist in Oslo. On 21 May 2016 it then arranged a meeting with Lars Hedegaard and the Swede (expelled from the Sweden Democrat) Hans Erling Jensen, CEO of the Hatune Foundation. On October 15 2016 SION arranged a conference where Mona Walter spoke.
SION remains active with events throughout 2017, including a talk from author Britt Margrethe Kvaran Elli in September 2017, and an active Facebook page and website.
Founder: Stephen Gash (co-founder, Stop Islamisation of Europe and former National Council member, English Democrats Party), active 2007-2010.
Prominent activist: Magnus Nielsen (UKIP activist and close friend of Alan Ayling).
Founded November 2007 as the successor to No Sharia Here (NSH), SIOE England is an anti-Muslim organisation that campaigns against Sharia law and the supposed Islamisation of England. NSH originally co-organised a ‘No Sharia Here!’ demonstration in central London on 26 October 2007.
As SIOE England, the new organisation co-organised an SIOE anti-Sharia law demonstration outside Lambeth Palace, London on 11 September 2008 and demonstrations against the proposed construction of the Harrow Central Mosque on 11 September 2009 and 13 December 2009.
However, the group has since become inactive and the SIOE England website has not been updated since January 2014 and the blog since 2008.
As of January 2018 the group still has a Facebook page with over 3,000 members and the admins are Stephen Gash, Pamela Geller, Jeanette Hansen and Anders Gravers Pedersen. The content on the Facebook feed is generated by a bot that posts and shares Pamela Geller’s content automatically.
Co-founder: Daniel L. Adams (Historian and Contributing Editor: Family Security Matters and New English Review)
Co-founder: Kendra Adams (New English Review)
Executive Director: Pamela L. Geller (President, Stop Islamization of Nations and Executive Director of American Freedom Defense Initiative)
Associate Director: Robert B. Spencer (Vice-President, Stop Islamization of Nations and Associate Director of American Freedom Defense Initiative and Executive Director of Jihad Watch).
SIOA works closely with ACT! for America, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), Faith Freedom International (FFI) and Jihad Watch.
It was founded on 25 September 2009 as a grassroots organisation to ‘oppose radical Islam, Sharia law and the Islamisation of the United States’. SIOA is the US affiliate of Stop Islamization of Nations (SION) but primarily operates as the American Freedom Defense Initiative.
SIOA has been described by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as promoting “a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam”. It has been listed as a ‘hate group’ by the ADL and by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
SIOA co-ordinated protests in summer 2010 against the proposed construction of Park 51 Islamic community centre near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, New York. It launched ‘Campaign Offensive: Stop the 9/11 Mosque!’ on 7 May 2010. It also organised a ‘No 9/11 Mosque at Grand Zero’ rally in New York on 6 June 2010, which was supported by ACT! for America, the AFDI and Faith Freedom International (FFI).
Between 2010 and 2014 SIOA co-organised an annual ‘anti-Islamist’ 9/11 Freedom Rally in New York on the anniversary of 9/11.
It also sponsored inflammatory advertisements in July 2010 on public buses in three US cities – Detroit, Miami and New York – encouraging people to leave the Islamic faith and promoting a ‘Refuge from Islam’ website.
In 2011 SIOA released the film ‘The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 911 Attacks’ Directed and produced by Pamela Geller, it claimed to “expose government collusion and media bias” which “whitewash[es] the links to jihad terror”.
In addition, SIOA co-sponsored the Stop Islamization of Nations International Freedom Defence Congress at the UN Millennium Plaza Hotel in New York City on 11 September 2012.
In early 2013, Geller’s AFDI organization escalated and intensified its anti-Muslim ad campaign when it unveiled a series of confrontational “My Jihad” ads featuring quotes and statements by Muslim extremists advocating violence. Geller’s ads concluded with: “That’s His Jihad. What’s Yours?”
On 23 June 2013 SIOA sponsored ‘A Summer Night for Human Rights’ featuring Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, Ibn Warraq, and Walid Shoebat. Meanwhile, between 7-10 March 2014 it participated in the Stop Islamization of Nations and Australian-based Q Society-sponsored 1st International Symposium on Liberty and Islam in Melbourne, Australia.
The group’s Facebook page is still active but mainly just reposts articles by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. In June 2016 Facebook deleted the SION page for violating its terms of use but later reinstated it. As of January 2018 the SIOA page has over 86,700 Likes.
In May 2017, Geller and the AFDI held a protest against Linda Sarsour’s speaking engagement at The City University of New York, at which Milo Yiannopoulos spoke.
On the 16th anniversary of 9/11 the AFDI had billboards in Times Square in New York advertising its new film, ‘Can’t We Talk About This? The Islamic Jihad Against Free Speech’.
Founded in 2010, SIOC does not seem to be officially affiliated to the SIOE network. As of January 2018 there are two competing active Facebook pages bearing the SIOC name, one with over 12,000 Likes and another with over 10,700.
Founded in 2010, the directory on SIOTW links to various Stop Islamization branches though appears to have no official affiliation.
Its site has been dormant since December 2016, as has its Twitter account since April 2017. It maintains a copy of the Fjordman Files, a conspiratorial collection of documents written by prominent anti-Muslim writer Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen under the Pseudonym Fjordman, and its representatives have attended counter-jihad meetings, including the March 2012 demo in Aarhus, Denmark alongside Stop Islamization of Europe and various Defence Leagues.
Faith Freedom International was founded in November 2001 as an international grassroots movement of former Muslims. The FFI is a member of the counter-jihad Europa network and works closely with Stop Islamization of America.
FFI collaborated in the launch of the WikiIslam site on 4 September 2006. This aimed to become a one-stop online source of information critical of Islam. WikiIslam became independent of FFI in August 2008.
Faith Freedom International now primarily functions as an active anti-Muslim website, featuring contributions from founder Ali Sina; American critic of environmentalism, Islam, homosexuality and research on global warming, Alan Caruba; Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism; Eric Allen Bell; Amil Imani; Babs Baron; Hamid Zanaz; Ibn Kammuna; Jacob Thomas; James Lewis; John MC; Johnathon Hanks; Larry Kelly; Lee Jay Walker; Merrick Coswell; Mumin Salih; Sher Khan; V.S. Naipaul; and Daniel Pipes of the International Free Press Society. Pipes is no longer listed as a columnist as of 2017.
The website is banned in Saudi Arabia.
Ali Sina, who calls himself “probably the biggest anti-Islam person alive”, was raised in Iran, educated in Pakistan and Italy and now lives in Canada. He is known to be close to Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, is a board member of Stop Islamization of Nations, and has been quoted by Geert Wilders during the inauguration of Die Freiheit, the Freedom Party, in Germany. Faith Freedom International was quoted in Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. In 2014, Sina published Understanding Muhammad: A Psychobiography of Allah’s Prophet.
This is an Italian branch of the Faith Freedom International (FFI). It is organised around a website but it mainly consists of Italian translations of materials and articles from the main FFI website.
The website now redirects to the anti-Muslim website alisina.org which still regularly posts Islamophobic content.
Leader: Jim Dowson
The Knights Templar International (KTI) is a small, international anti-Muslim Christian fundamentalist group founded by UK extremist Jim Dowson.
The group is said to have engaged in activity in Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Northern Ireland, UK, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Syria.
It was set up by Dowson soon after he left Britain First, the far-right/extreme Christian group he founded and which has generated notoriety for its ‘mosque invasions’ and ‘Christian patrol’ stunts in the UK, as well as a large Facebook following.
In 2016, HOPE not hate revealed how Dowson and ex-British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin went to Bulgaria to supply materials to a border-patrolling, extreme right-wing militia group. Both have also spoken at conferences on the “demographics” they claim prove the white race (read “Christian” in Dowson’s phraseology) is facing extinction.
KTI has not only proposed to help resettle hundreds of former Boer farmers from South Africa in Hungary’s under-populated rural areas (for a small fee) but Dowson has also used his internet reach to promote Hungary as the chosen destination for a European-wide “white flight’ of dreamers, seeking a life of agrarian hardship away from the “excessive liberalism” of the European Union.
KTI employs a full-time team of Hungarian IT professionals to update websites that are then monetised to produce “cash for clicks” for the organisation.
In December 2016, The New York Times reported that Dowson had run 16 websites and Facebook pages directed at US v viewers, through which he disseminated anti-Clinton and pro- Trump propaganda during the 2016 US presidential campaign.
In May 2017 Nick Griffin and Dowson were banned from Hungary.
The American Freedom Alliance (AFA) is an organisation claiming to be a “non-partisan, nonaligned movement which promotes, defends and upholds Western values and ideals”.
The group lists its main objects as defending against “the Islamization of the West”, the “politicization of academia”, “media bias”, “radical environmentalism” and “global governance”. It hosts lectures and conferences which have featured a variety of Islamophobic figures.
Its 2017 ‘Heroes of Conscience Dinner’, held in May, featured a keynote speech by Geert Wilders, and its August 2017 ‘From Gold to Dust: Destruction of California’ heard a keynote speech from Victor David Hanson.
In November 2017 the group held a ‘Crush Free Speech: How the Left Silences Dissent and How We Can Fight Back’ conference in Los Angeles, with speakers including Christine Brim, AFA fellow Trevor Loudon, FrontPage columnist and managing editor Jamie Glazov, political scientist and commentator Carol Swain, Frank Gaffney of the CSP, Robert Epstein of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, musician Joy Villa, Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson, AFA Fellow Howard Hyde, Freedom X CEO William Becker, AFA board members Barak Lurie and Kevin Fink.
The group’s “Heroes of Conscience Dinner” in June 2018 heard a speech from Loudon.
The group’s website also has a blog that posts a few articles a month, and the outfit publishes a weekly gazette for AFA members.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) has called AFA a “hate group”.
Board of Directors:
A Reform Party candidate fantasised about deporting “millions” of British citizens to “rid itself of the foreign plague we have been diseased with”. UPDATE: Reform…
