Advertise on podcast: The ICCT Podcast

The EU e-Evidence framework was designed to make access to electronic evidence across borders faster. But faster access also means that service providers and authorities need to make decisions quickly about data that is often sensitive, while still complying with existing data protection rules.  In the first episode of ICCT’s The Ins and Outs of the e-Evidence Regulation and Directive, Isabella Pirlogea speaks with data protection expert Danny van Roijen about how the new framework interacts with the GDPR and what this means in practice for service providers, authorities and data subjects.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, joins the ICCT-SACC SENTINEL podcast to examine the escalating threats facing Germany's Jewish community since October 7th, 2023 - and the shifting coalitions behind them. Schindler traces today's Islamist-far-left alliance, now the leading source of violent threat to German Jews, against its historical predecessor: the 1970s partnership between Palestinian militants and the German far-left, once bound by a shared "anti-imperialist" ideology. That genuine ideological kinship is gone; Schindler argues, what remains is, in his words, "antisemitism dressed in the clothes of anti-Zionism." He also unpacks two emerging fronts: Hamas operatives reportedly embedded in Europe with instructions to carry out attacks, including against Jewish targets, and a troubling shift following the US/Israel war against Iran, with Tehran allegedly recruiting low-level criminals to carry out deniable attacks on Jewish targets. For Schindler, these hybrid threats expose a structural blind spot - one that no longer fits neatly into Germany's existing categories of Islamist or far-left terrorism, and demands a fundamental rethink of how the threat is understood and countered.

For the fourth episode of the ICCT-SACC SENTINEL podcast, Anne-Clémentine Larroque, lecturer in International Affairs at Sciences Po, author of Géopolitique des islamismes, and an analyst in French anti-terrorism trials, joins the series to trace the threat posed by European Islamism, with a focus on the Muslim Brotherhood in France. Larroque maps a landscape far more fractured than it appears from the outside. Islamist currents have been embedding themselves in Europe since the 1950s, but they are not one movement: some, like the Muslim Brotherhood, grew from the bottom up, while others are backed by states such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey. Some encourage members to stay and build permanent roots in Europe; others preach eventual return to the Gulf. Treating them as a single bloc, Larroque argues, obscures more than it reveals. She also traces a harder throughline: antisemitism woven into the Muslim Brotherhood's founding opposition to Zionism in British Mandate Palestine - an enmity that, over decades, hardened into a broader rejection of Jews and Israel. Yet in France, the Brotherhood's proponents rarely say so openly, avoiding antisemitic language in public even as more numerous and more radical Salafist voices speak with far less restraint. A conversation about the ideological fault lines that divide Europe's Islamist movements

In April 2026, ICCT Senior Fellow Kacper Rekawek spoke with Jean-Yves Camus, a leading expert on the French far-right, a member of the French Jewish community himself, and a former European Jewish Congress staffer, about the threat landscape facing Europe's largest Jewish population. Camus dismantles a common assumption: the extreme-right, he argues, has not been the primary source of anti-Jewish violence in France. That distinction belongs to Islamist militancy, a trend traceable to the Second Intifada and one that has surged dramatically - from roughly 900 incidents in the three months after October 7th, 2023, to 1,300 recorded in 2025 alone. The politics, meanwhile, have scrambled in ways few would have predicted. The far-right now courts French Jews with declarations of solidarity with Israel, while parts of the far-left, and elements of the mainstream left, increasingly excuse or embrace anti-Semitic militancy. Some French Jews, Camus notes, have responded by drifting toward the Rassemblement National. He pushes back hard against this instinct: a community that makes up less than 1% of France's population, he warns, cannot afford to gamble on any political extreme in a decade this volatile. A clear-eyed look at how threat, politics, and identity are colliding for the French Jewish community.

In April 2026, ICCT Senior Fellow Kacper Rekawek sat down with Noemi di Segni, who led Italy's Union of Jewish Communities (UCEI) for nine years, to unpack a counterintuitive story: Italian counter-terrorism has been remarkably effective at keeping bombs and mass-casualty plots away from the country's 25,000-strong Jewish community since October 7th, 2023. But that same success has pushed the danger elsewhere. Di Segni explains how tightened security around synagogues and schools, achieved through close cooperation with police and government, has displaced the threat rather than eliminated it. Italian Jews increasingly face isolation and social ostracism, often viewed not as fellow Europeans but as stand-ins for Israeli government policy. The result is a community newly reliant on those willing to stand with them outside the walls of Jewish institutions - a quieter, harder-to-police threat than any bomb. A conversation about what protection really means when the danger moves from the perimeter to everyday life.

With an increasing number of anti-Semitic attacks all-over Europe, this podcast episode aims at shedding light on ICCT’s SENTINEL project which is led by SACC – the security arm of the EJC: European Jewish Congress. In this episode, Ophir Revach and Kacper Rekawek discuss the reality and daily workloads of the individuals and groups (mixing professionals and volunteers) responsible for the security and protection of Jewish communities around Europe (around 1 million people in total). They look at this issue in the light of the events of 7 October 2023 and answer the question on whether much has changed in this field over the last 2 years. Moreover, they demonstrate how the security of the aforementioned communities is intertwined with the developments related to the terrorist threat to Europe as both jihadi but also extreme-right attackers continue to target Jewish installations and the Jewish community in Europe. Finally, they underscore how organisations such as SACC are now effectively looking after the security of thousands of installations as the plotters are seeking ever softer targets to strike at.

The 27th of February 2025 is the 3rd anniversary of the founding of the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine. On this day, ICCT publishes a podcast with Donald Bowser, a Ukraine hand and one with a front row seat to the Legion’s development and evolution. In the podcast, he also reflects on the issue of (extremist) doxing of foreigners involved in supporting Ukraine and how it subsequently leads to more Russian state terrorism targeting Ukraine and the EU. Donald Bowser has more than 30 years of experience with and in Ukraine. He helped to put the country’s anti-corruption infrastructure in place after the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014 and delivered non-lethal assistance to different Ukrainian units since the beginning of the full scale war in 2022. He joined ICCT to talk about his experiences with foreign fighters in Ukraine and doxxing by a state actor, Russia, because of his involvement on the side of Ukraine in the war. This podcast is released within the framework of the ANTI-DOX project in which the ICCT is joined by Reporters’ Foundation. The project is supported by the European Media and Information Fund (EMIF) which is managed by the Celeste Gulbenkian Foundation.

"The Role of AI in (Counter-)Terrorism” is an ICCT podcast series that explores the role of artificial intelligence in the security space, and specifically how it relates to terrorism and counter-terrorism. This series considers how AI poses a new type of threat but also offers new opportunities to actors in the global security space – through conversations with practitioners, academics and policy-makers. Our final episode will look at the legal and governance implications of using AI. Together with Irakli Beridze, Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at UNICRI and Els de Busser, Assistant Professor Cyber Security Governance, we will consider the legal and governmental considerations of AI in national security. Are current legal and governance approaches fit for purpose in a world where terrorists may start using AI? What regulations and ethical considerations should we take into account, and what would be necessary to foster international collaboration in this area?

"The Role of AI in (Counter-)Terrorism” is an ICCT podcast series that explores the role of artificial intelligence in the security space, and specifically how it relates to terrorism and counter-terrorism. This series considers how AI poses a new type of threat but also offers new opportunities to actors in the global security space – through conversations with practitioners, academics and policy-makers. The second episode features a conversation with Naureen Chowdhury Fink, the Executive Director at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), and Professor Stephen Baele, an expert on the role of AI in extremism. Together, they will explore whether and how terrorists are currently exploiting AI, which actors have already used AI and for what purposes, and they will dive into the kinds of threats and risks this could pose.

"The Role of AI in (Counter-)Terrorism” is an ICCT podcast series that explores the role of artificial intelligence in the security space, and specifically how it relates to terrorism and counter-terrorism. This series considers how AI poses a new type of threat but also offers new opportunities to actors in the global security space – through conversations with practitioners, academics and policy-makers. In the first episode of this podcast series, we welcome Professor Tim Watson, Director of Defence and National Security at The Alan Turing Institute and David Wells, global security consultant. They will introduce the role of artificial intelligence in national security, explore questions about AI’s impact, challenges and opportunities, and discuss how AI might influence the threat landscape in Europe and beyond.

“Anti-Institutional Extremism: Causes and Responses” is an ICCT podcast series that explores forms of extremism that oppose the government and the perceived oppression from a globalised elite, often fueled by conspiracy narratives and disinformation. This series analyses what anti-institutional extremism looks like in North America and Europe today, and how it can be addressed and countered — through conversations with practitioners, academics, and policy-makers. In this fifth and last episode, we speak to Ian Moss, Deputy Coordinator for the Bureau of Counterterrorism at the US State Department, overseeing Countering Violent Extremism and Terrorist Detentions. Mr Moss describes the threat landscape today and how anti-institutional extremism fits into this. He expands on violent extremism motivated by racial and ethnic issues (REMVE), by the loss of faith in government and key institutions such as health. He analyses how the U.S. is trying to counter anti-institutional extremism and how it could work with its European partners to address it better.

“Anti-Institutional Extremism: Causes and Responses” is an ICCT podcast series that explores forms of extremism that oppose the government and the perceived oppression from a globalised elite, often fueled by conspiracy narratives and disinformation. This series analyses what anti-institutional extremism looks like in North America and Europe today, and how it can be addressed and countered — through conversations with practitioners, academics, and policy-makers. In this fourth episode, we speak to Erik Akerboom, Director General of the Dutch domestic intelligence service, the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), since May 2020. Mr Akerboom seeks to provide a definition of anti-institutional extremism from the AIVD perspective, to explain the unique challenges for national intelligence services to counter this type of extremism and to analyse the potential legal implications. He also dives into an extensive and public report recently published by AIVD on anti-institutional extremism in the Netherlands.

“Anti-Institutional Extremism: Causes and Responses” is an ICCT podcast series that explores forms of extremism that oppose the government and the perceived oppression from a globalised elite, often fueled by conspiracy narratives and disinformation. This series analyses what anti-institutional extremism looks like in North America and Europe today, and how it can be addressed and countered — through conversations with practitioners, academics, and policy-makers. In this third episode, we speak to Julia Ebner, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) in London and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University’s Calleva Centre of Evolution and Human Sciences, and Jelle van Buuren, Assistant Professor at Leiden University, Institute of Security and Global Affairs.   Julia and Jelle discuss what anti-institutional extremism looks like in Europe today and what the key differences are between countries and regions. They also analyse how this movement has evolved, what its key issues are today, and how extremists in Europe are being affected by developments in the US or in Russia.

“Anti-Institutional Extremism: Causes and Responses” is an ICCT podcast series that explores forms of extremism that oppose the government and the perceived oppression from a globalised elite, often fueled by conspiracy narratives and disinformation. This series analyses what anti-institutional extremism looks like in North America and Europe today, and how it can be addressed and countered — through conversations with practitioners, academics, and policy-makers. In this second episode, we speak to Martha Crenshaw, senior fellow emerita at The Center for International Security and Cooperation (C-SAC) and Freedman Spogli Institute, and a professor of political science by courtesy at Stanford, and Arie Perlinger, Professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.   Martha and Arie focus on specific examples of anti-institutional extremism in North America. They also consider who is involved in anti-institutional extremism, what their ideological basis is,  how and why the phenomenon is evolving,  and how these actors are linked across the US and with actors/movements in Europe.

“Anti-Institutional Extremism: Causes and Responses” is an ICCT podcast series that explores forms of extremism that oppose the government and the perceived oppression from a globalised elite, often fueled by conspiracy narratives and disinformation. This series analyses what anti-institutional extremism looks like in North America and Europe today, and how it can be addressed and countered — through conversations with practitioners, academics, and policy-makers. In the first episode, we speak to Tore Bjørgo, Director of the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo, and Bàrbara Molas, Researcher of Current and Emerging Threats at ICCT.   Tore and Bàrbara seek to provide a definition of what anti-institutional extremism is and what it is not. They also discuss who is involved in anti-institutional extremism, if these actors are uniform in their approach, and how the phenomenon has evolved. They also discuss the concerns around labelling this movement, and where to draw the line between legal protests and actions that require a response.