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United Nations:
Groups related to al-Qaeda and ISIS are exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to unfold conspiracy theories that the virus is “punishing the unbelievers”, is “God”s wrath upon the West” and incites terrorists to make use of it as a type of organic weapon, based on a UN report.
The report titled ”Stop the virus of disinformation: the malicious use of social media by terrorist, violent extremist and felony teams in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic” was launched by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) on Wednesday.
It mentioned that criminals and violent extremists are exploiting the pandemic to construct their help networks, undermine belief in authorities and even weaponise the virus. The report added that terrorist, violent extremist and organised felony teams have maliciously used social media to disseminate conspiracy theories in regards to the origin of COVID-19.
“Groups associated with ISIL and Al-Qaeda have also spread conspiracy theories that assert that the virus is a ”soldier of Allah” that is punishing the unbelievers and the enemies that have damaged Muslims over the last years. For example, ISIL and Al-Qaeda claimed that the virus is God’s wrath upon the West,” the report mentioned.
Similarly, Al-Shabaab declared that the coronavirus illness is unfold by the “crusader forces who have invaded the country and the disbelieving countries that support them”, the report mentioned.
The Global Fatwa Index has recognized COVID-19 associated messages from teams related to ISIS and al-Qaeda, together with non-official fatwas that known as on ISIS members who’ve contracted COVID-19 to behave as “biological bombs” by “deliberately spreading the disease among the organisation”s enemies,” it mentioned.
UNICRI Director Antonia Marie De Meo wrote within the introduction to the report that it’s “alarming that some terrorist and violent extremist groups have attempted to misuse social media to incite potential terrorists to intentionally spread COVID-19 and to use it as an improvised form of a biological weapon.”
“There are cases in which right-wing extremist groups… explicitly asked their followers to spread the virus by coughing on their local minority or by attending to specific places where religious or racial minorities gather. Other groups…advocate to spread the coronavirus disease in countries with large populations or high levels of pollution,” the report mentioned.
It additionally notes the case of “inspired terrorism” was that of Timothy Wilson, who plotted to detonate a bomb in a hospital caring for coronavirus sufferers in Kansas City. He died throughout a firefight with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in March.
According to the report, the researchers examined three teams of non-State actors: right-wing extremists; teams related to the ISIS or Da”esh terror group and al-Qaeda; and organised crime teams.
The researchers mentioned that the principle conclusions that they’ve drawn from their research had been that violent non-state actors, together with terrorist, violent extremist and organised felony teams, have been maliciously utilizing social media throughout COVID-19.
Right-wing extremist teams and the teams related to ISIS and al-Qaeda have tried to make use of the pandemic to bolster their narratives (both racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant or towards democracy and modernisation).
Organised felony teams have been attempting to benefit from the pandemic primarily to painting a optimistic picture of their organisations to broaden their actions and penetrate the authorized economic system, the report mentioned.
The conspiracy theories often attribute the origin of the virus to governments, non secular or ethnic teams, secret networks, corporations or businessmen who, based on these interpretations, are attempting to push by means of secret agendas comparable to globalist depopulation, the management of the world or the era of monetary incomes by means of the sale of already produced vaccines and drug remedies, it mentioned.
Right-wing extremist teams have additionally circulated conspiracy theories that blame immigrants and foreigners as those liable for spreading the virus.
The New Jersey European Heritage Association (NJEHA) shared a marketing campaign the place they positioned stickers with slogans comparable to “Stop coronavirus – deport all illegal aliens”, “migrants accepted no – we are infected”, “open borders is the virus”, “multicultural is the virus”, “open borders spread disease” across the metropolis, the report mentioned.
Conspiracy theories comparable to Accelerationism, QAnon, and Boogaloo have additionally been used to misrepresent the COVID-19 pandemic, it mentioned.
The UNICRI researchers recognized a number of devices to debunk disinformation and misinformation, together with knowledge science instruments, fact-checking apps and synthetic intelligence however warned that know-how countermeasures alone can’t cease abuse of social media.
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