enter the Netherlands again”
Dutch Jihadist Fighters in Syria and Iraq:
Geopolitical Representations on the Role of Statehood in
Parliamentarian and Media Debates in the Netherlands
Master thesis
Emi Suijk (12295256)
Master program Human Geography
Track: Political Geography
Supervisor: Dr. Virginie Mamadouh
Second assessor: Dr. Inge van der Welle
Abstract
In the era of globalization, the global political framework on modern statehood, as established in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, became increasingly challenged by forces from above and below that seem to erode state power at a national level. As a result, the statehood became redefined as a powerful entity constructed by a set of tangible and intangible political practices and linguistic performances. The fixed and permanent character of state sovereignty, territory and citizenship is extensively addressed by the academic field of geopolitics. Scholars argue that the legitimacy of the state and enforcing political authority is framed by linguistic constructions on national value systems, perceptions and ‘territorial language’ as a domestic justification for international events and actions. In the academic literature, a lot of attention is paid to the recent cross-border phenomenon of Dutch jihadists travelling to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State in their struggle for the establishment of a jihadist caliphate, and repressive trend in the adopted measures by the Dutch government. Unfortunately, there is a lack of geographical understandings towards this topic. Through content and discourse analysis, this thesis tries to contribute to a better understanding from a geographical perspective by unravelling the hidden debate on role of the statehood in the political and public debates on this topic. It demonstrates that the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates are fruitful sources for conceptualisations on sovereignty, territory and citizenship. The distinguishable narratives foster a ‘nationalization’ of the representation of spaces in which the dominance of the state scale shapes the Dutch statehood and its political community.
Table of content
1. Introduction 9
2. The contested statehood and geopolitical representations 12
2.1 Debates on the transformative statehood 12
2.2 Geopolitical representations on statehood 14
3. Research design 17
3.1 Operationalization of concepts 17
3.2 Study on the contextualization of the phenomenon 18
3.3 Parliamentarian and media debates 19
3.4 Analysis strategies 21
3.5 Limitations and constraints 22
4. Dutch jihadist fighters and the European and international context 23
4.1 International context 23
4.2 European context 25
4.3 Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and repressive policies 26
5. Parliamentarian debates 31
5.1 Development of the parliamentarian debates 31
5.2 State as repressive enforcer of national security 37
5.3 State as guarantor of the constitutional state and inclusiveness 39
5.4 State as a bounded territorial entity 42
6. Media debates 45
6.1 De Volkskrant 45
6.2 De Telegraaf 49
6.3 Similarities and differences in the Dutch media 52
7. Conclusion and discussion 55
8. Literature list 59
9. Appendices
Appendix 1 – ICCT literature list 63
Appendix 2 - Overview of Dutch political parties in de Tweede Kamer 67 Appendix 3 – List of all search results of the parliamentarian debates 69
Appendix 4 – Codebook qualitative analysis 71
Appendix 5 – Ethical procedure and questions by the AISSR 72
Appendix 6 – Data on parliamentarian debates 73
List of Abbreviations
AIVD Algemene Inlichtingen en Dutch security service
Veiligheids Dienst
CTC Counter Terrorism European Counter Terrorism
Coordinator Coordinator
CvdRM College voor de Rechten Netherlands Institute
van de Mens Human Rights
EVN Europees Verdrag Nationaliteit European Treaty on Nationality
ICC Internationaal strafhof International Criminal Court
ICCT Internationaal Centrum voor International Centre for Counter-
Counter-Terrorisme Terrorism
IND Integratie en Naturalisatie Integration and Naturalization
Dienst Service
NCTV National Coordinator Terrorisme National Coordinator Terrorism
en Veiligheid and Security
OM Openbaar Ministerie Public Prosecutor Service
UNSC Verenigde Naties Veiligheidsraad United Nations Security Council
List of Dutch terminology
IS-strijder Term referring to a member, in particular a fighter, of Islamic State Jihadganger Term referring to an individual travelling to foreign countries – in this
context Syria and Iraq – for jihadist purposes Jihadstrijder Term referring to jihadist fighter
Syriëganger Term referring to a jihadist – from the Netherlands or other western countries – travelling to Syria (and Iraq) for jihadist purposes Syriëreis Term referring to a trip to Syria to participate in the Syrian civil war,
1 Introduction
“Leaving them there does not make us safe.
The debate about whether or not to actively bring back Dutch jihadists who are currently in Kurdish camps has flared up again in the recent weeks. The reason for this is the statement made by US President Trump who told the Europeans to repatriate their jihadists. There was also an interview with the jihadist Yago R. from Arnhem who indicated that he wished to return to the Netherlands with his family. A large majority of the public and the Tweede Kamer [Dutch
House of Representatives] does not think it is a good idea to actively engage in helping those
people to return. It is assumed that there is enough to do about the jihadists in our own country and that we should not include people like Yago as well. Leave them there, far away from the Netherlands. That sounds clear and safe, but it is short-sighted and unfortunately does not make us any safer.”
(Bakker, 9 March 2019, De Telegraaf: Binnenland, p. 24).
Since the emergence of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, hundreds, nearly a thousand, of European jihadist sympathizers left their homeland to join such violent jihadist organizations (De Roy van Zuijdewijn, 2014). After the collapse of the caliphate in 2017, policy makers started to warn more urgent for the potential surge of jihadist fighters that will return to their home country (NATO, 2017) – the so-called blowback effect (Vidino, 2014). This caused a lot of political and public anxiety and triggered a broad debate about the fate of these individuals, like the abovementioned example, which was recently published in the Dutch media, shows. Although multiple studies found that only a small minority will eventually return home (De Roy van Zuijdewijn, 2014), those returnees are often perceived as potential threats because they will carry out terrorist attacks in their home country and disrupt the social cohesion either within or around European Member states (NATO, 2017). The terrorist attacks on a Jewish Museum in Brussels and on the headquarters of the satiric newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris in May 2014 and January 2015 respectively carried out by returnees from Syria confirmed these fears. As a result, there was pressure increased on European leaders to act upon forceful measures to fight such threats (De Roy van Zuijdewijn, 2014; Reed et al., 2015). Despite the fact that European countries have an extensive set of measures consisting of both preventive (soft) and repressive (hard) measures, Reed et al. (2015, p. 7) identified “a slow but steady move towards
more repressive measures”. With the fall of the caliphate and the feared return of jihadist
fighters, debates towards this phenomenon and the adopted approaches further intensified because of the growing fear for more returnees.
In the academic literature as well as in policy-related research documents, there is unfortunately a considerable lack of geographical understandings towards this specific topic. The existing literature mainly focuses on historical examples (de Roy van Zuijdewijn, 2014), psychological questions on the who and the why (Weggemans et al., 2014; Bakker & de Bont, 2016), or moral and legal challenges and constraints in policy concerning repressive measures (Carey, 2018; Barry & Ferracioli, 2015; Solow, 2011). In many respects, terrorism and counter- or anti-terrorism policies are related to geographical issues and geography provides very
valuable alternative perspectives on such topics (de Blij, 2012; Flint, 2003; Bahgat & Medina, 2013). More specifically, jihadist fighters and the repressive measures against them have a strong link with the subdiscipline of geopolitics, which tackles issues on policymaking, geopolitical discourses, international relations, boundaries and power structures (Mamadouh, 1999; de Blij, 2012). This exploratory research will demonstrate that the debates on the phenomenon on returning jihadist fighters and the adopted measures are fruitful sources for geopolitical representations on the perceived threat rising from the phenomenon and, more specifically, the role of the state in the adopted pre-dominantly repressive measures towards these individuals. To do so, this research focuses on the Dutch case study considering it is an interesting case because of its significant number of jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq compared to its size (Bakker & de Bont, 2015), and the multiple forceful measures and actions the Dutch government adopted towards this perceived security threat (Vidino et al., 2014). The aim is to unravel both the obvious and underlying geopolitical representations of the role of the state in the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates about Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and the repressive measures. This is translated in the following main question:
“How are geopolitical representations on the role of statehood manifested in the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates on Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and the adopted repressive measures?”
A geopolitical perspective on this particular topic is of interest because since the emergence of increasing globalization the importance of the nation state as political entity is being stressed by several geographers. They mention the ongoing process of the erosion of the state in which the power of the state is shifted to on the one hand local authorities and on the other hand supranational institutions and internationally operating multinationals and non-governmental organizations (Murray & Overton, 2015, pp. 171-174). Hence, statehood is being re-addressed as an abstract construction performing power through political practices and performances in order to enforce legitimacy and power (Mitchell, 1999, p. 89; Hansen & Stepputat, 2001, p. 17). The principles on which the state traditionally based its legitimacy – sovereignty, territoriality and citizenship – became problematized for their value to define statehood and the existence of the national state. By discussing one of the most recent and much-discussed international developments and phenomenon of jihadist fighters, this thesis aims to contribute to a better academic geopolitical understanding on the role of the state in a shifting framework of national and international power relations. It moreover provides a valuable and innovative addition to the already existing literature on jihadist fighters in social and political sciences by discussing the phenomenon through a geographical lens. The societal relevance of this topic is that it contributes to a better understanding of the Dutch context and debates occurring in relation to the jihadist fighters leaving the Netherlands to fight for terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq. By using a specific case study, the national context can be better unravelled and identify case-specific challenges and possible recommendations regarding the geopolitical representations of the Dutch statehood and how these are produced and distributed in this particular case.
This thesis starts with a discussion of the debates in the field of political geography on the changing nature and geopolitical representations of statehood. The third chapter informs the
reader about the methodological choices on content and discourse analysis as well as the sampling for the analysis of the parliamentarian and media debates. Chapter 4 goes deeper into the Dutch case-study and the European and international context in which the developments and debates should be understood. Chapter 5 and 6 focus on the parliamentarian and media debates respectively, discussing the most important differences and similarities across the identified narratives on the role of the state. The seventh and last chapter discusses the main conclusions that can be drawn from the analysis in the preceding chapters arguing that this topic has potential for possible further (geographical) research given the ongoing recent events and debates.
2 The contested statehood and geopolitical representations
This chapter elaborates on the debates in political geography on the contested nature of statehood under the influence of globalization processes and the geopolitical representations through which a state is performed or practised. The aim of this chapter is to outline the theoretical framework in which this research is positioned, and which forms the theoretical basis for the analysis of the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates.
2.1 Debates on the transformative statehood
In the academic literature on statehood, there is a lot of literature on the geopolitical debate on the transformative statehood which is discussed clearly by Agnew (1194; 1999; 2005) and Behr (2008) among others. The emergence of the modern statehood and the international system of nation-states found its establishment through the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 (Murray & Overton, 2015, p. 163). In this traditional framework, modern states were seen as static and bounded entities (Agnew, 1994; 1999; 2005) and their foundations based on three interrelated principles: sovereignty, territory and the political community. Firstly, sovereignty is claim for the highest political authority without being questioned, challenged, or fought (Behr, 2008, p. 361). In case of the state, such sovereignty claims mean the political control over collective goods (e.g. security of infrastructure) (Agnew, 1999; p. 500). Moreover, it includes the capability to act through legislation and institutions and thus also consists of the legal and institutional framework through which the state is capable to control and maintain power (Agnew, 1999, p. 500; Behr, 2008, p. 362). Although a sovereignty claim is a necessary condition, it is not sufficient in itself since the state must be able to define the scope of its sovereignty: over what and whom sovereignty is claimed.
So, the second principle is the political space or territoriality of the state and comes forward from the spatial context after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, in which state sovereignty is respected and is reduced to territorial units (Agnew, 2005, p. 446; Behr, 2008; p. 361). Here, state sovereignty is understood as “the absolute territorial organization of political
authority” (Agnew, 2005, p. 439). Behr (2008) discusses the central functions of border as
demarcation and protection of the state’s territory. The state derives its existence from these borders as they do define the political space over which the state claim sovereignty. In this traditional view, territoriality is often argued to be the most important, although insufficient claim in the strategy to exercise state power (Behr, 2008; Johnston, 2001, p. 684).
Thirdly, it is also important to discuss over whom the state is claiming political authority. In this political discourse, state sovereignty is about the central power of the state and whether the state has the ability to “make commands that are voluntarily complied with those over whom
the state claims authority” (Agnew, 2005, p. 439). In the notion on modern statehood, this
refers the political community or the legal citizens of the territorial state. According to Agnew (1999, p. 513), citizenship is an important element of the state its territorial sovereignty as it presents the states monopoly over a territory by defining and enforcing citizenship. Moreover, Forcese (2014, p. 555) even argues that the treatment of individuals through citizenship and the additional legal rights has always been the monopoly of states and their power to in- and exclude or discriminate against individuals in their rights and liberties. Additionally, Behr (2008)
mentions the importance of integration as a key element that holds the political community together.
However, this conventional notion of the national statehood became increasingly challenged by globalization processes resulting in increasing cross-border phenomena. Agnew (1999; 2005) challenged the territorial ‘trap’ or ‘fever’ in which state sovereignty is understood and argues that we should rethink the territorial political space of the state and its sovereignty. Political power and sovereignty are no longer necessarily territorially bounded and became also understood as fluid, cross-border flows (Agnew, 2005). States now have the ability to exercise their power in various places which vary in their geographical reach and political power and should, therefore, not be reduced to territory (Agnew, 1999, p. 501). Although the ‘realists’ remain positive about the role of state sovereignty as it will remain a central regulatory role in the global political relations, the ‘modernizers’ argue that the role of the state becomes further eroded by forces from below and above (Murray & Overton, 2015, p. 171). Especially larger territorial units will reduce state power: these include supranational (political) organizations as the European Union or even international blocks like the NATO. Because of this, Behr (2008) acknowledges that the function of territory and borders should be re-addressed as rather ideological and socio-psychological functions but contrarily, he retained the concept of sovereignty which is based on territorial notions because “the study of global politics,
especially for the analysis of security issues and conflict, has to focus on those arenas where transnational conflicts emerge and where state and transnational violent actors encounter each other.” (Behr, 2008, p. 363).
Moreover, besides sovereignty and territory, the idea of a political community became further problematized due to migration and the possibility of dual citizenships (Agnew, 1999). Citizenship became more differentiated and globalization even raises questions over cosmopolitan citizens and transnational actors (Behr, 2008), which problematize the state’s monopoly to regulate citizenship. Consequently, the state has to fight even harder to control and impose restrictions on rights of citizenship to maintain their exclusive position as territorially bounded political entity (Agnew, 1999).
These developments have resulted in new ways of how statehood should be understood. By the end of the 20th century, the concept of the state became re-addressed by Mitchell (1999,
p. 89) and others as an abstract construction with a powerful set of political practices instead of a specific body or political authority or put simply: as an effect of practices. Hansen & Stepputat (2001, p. 17) further elaborate on this idea of the state as a fictional entity which involves multiple performances in policing and controlling territorial boundaries. According to Müller (2012, p. 382): “the state itself creates a heterogeneous, socio-material assemblage that
secures its power and thus becomes more than the sum of its parts”. In short, the state is a
performed construct (Björkdahl, 2018) which consists of multiple tangible and intangible practices at different levels of society to secure legitimacy and enforce political authority (Ferguson & Gupta, 2002). The next section discusses geopolitical representations on statehood and its legitimacy based on sovereignty, territoriality and citizenship.
2.2 Geopolitical representations on statehood
Debates about statehood and questioning the fixed and permanent character of state sovereignty and citizenship based on territoriality is extensively addressed by the subfield of geopolitics. Flint’s (2011, p. 31) definition of geopolitics implies the central role of states: “The practice of
states controlling and competing for territory. [...] geopolitics, in theory, language, and practice, classifies swathes of territory and masses of people.” Flint (2011) continues that the
competition over territory is closely linked to geopolitical representations; how we see the world, thus imagined geographies. Geopolitical representations are part of research towards critical geopolitical discursive practices on codes, visions, imaginations and representations (Dijkink, 1998; Mamadouh & Dijkink, 2006). Geopolitical representations should be understood as a set of non-verbal (pictures), semi-verbal (iconographic) and verbal (words and texts) practices (Dijkink, 1998, p. 297). Using these different geopolitical representations creates overall geopolitical storylines, discourses and narratives. Critical geopolitics consists of critical approaches to (foreign) policy and stresses the importance of language of such practices. From around the 1990s, critical geopolitics has made an important contribution to geography as an approach to investigate geopolitical discourses (Mamadouh, 1999, p. 124). The main aim of critical geopolitics is to challenge the ‘organized totality’ and unravel how politics of power are exercised (Ó Tuathail, 1994 in Müller, 2012). Moreover, key to these discursive struggles is the emphasis on the human construction and change and/or continuity (Dijkink, 1998; Mamadouh & Dijkink, 2006). Foucault’s (2007) work made an important contribution to geopolitics. The Foucauldian notion on productive power, either the relationship between power and knowledge (Foucault, 2007) remain a central issue in geopolitical representations. Power is constantly produced and thus creating knowledge of spaces that are imbued with power. Here, sovereignty is not understood as a given, but rather as a production involving multiple forces which are manifested in concrete and historical frameworks (Foucault, 2007). Critical geopolitics is involved in the geographical knowledge and representations to naturalize power and problematize spaces of power (Mamadouh & Dijkink, 2006). Shortly summarized, Flint (2011, p. 35) describes it as: “Contemporary geopolitics identifies the sources, practices,
and representations that allow for the control of territory and the extraction of resources.” The
approach of geopolitical representations can be distinguished in three different domains: formal geopolitics: the academic field; practical or applied geopolitics: the domain of foreign policy and politicians; and popular geopolitics: the domain of popular realm and mass media (Mamadouh, 1999; Mamadouh & Dijkink, 2006). Furthermore, Müller (2012) argues that the production and circulation of geopolitical knowledge on statehood arises from a complex combination of geopolitical human and non-human actors that work together in stabilizing and ordering to maintain power. Both political elites (practical geopolitics) as well as the media (popular geopolitics), among others, play an important role in the production of geopolitical narratives (Müller, 2012). Additionally, by acknowledging the role of individuals and organizations in geopolitical ordering, one should also be aware that these practices do occur in — while simultaneously shaping – a specific social and geographical context. This context is not merely an optional background, but rather a constitutive element in geopolitical representations by different actors (Müller, 2012, p. 386).
The national or the state level on geopolitical representations on power is a much-discussed topic. Dijkink (1998) argues that there can be a national vocabulary or discourse identified to make international events and policy more understandable and acceptable to the domestic audience. These discourses are based on national value systems and perceptions. Mamadouh & Dijkink (2006) additionally argue that states use geopolitical representations as a domestic justification for international events and/or actions or as part of a national identity strategy. Language, here, is a representational force to control and regulate people. Especially important to geography is the territorial language which relates to national feelings, unity and identity and sustains the representation of a bounded sovereign state which controls its political community effectively. Häkli (2001) identified the dominant tendency to take a state-territorial definition of society for granted – with some exceptions – and introduces a geographical perspective in structuring the production of knowledge of society and statehood. He refers to what Agnew (1993) calls the ‘nationalization’ of the representation of spaces in which the dominance of the state scale shapes the state and its society. These state-centred orders are inscribed in spaces, both materially as discursively (Novak, 2011). Put shortly: “Whereas the
premodern state had porous frontiers and lacked the means to effectively regulate social life, the modern state organizes its practices, defines its sovereignty and population territorially, and imagines itself as a territorial unit.” (Häkli, 2001, p. 412). Strikingly, Novak (2011) argues
that these state-centred discourses, and especially based on territoriality, are extremely flexible and are challenged by processes on other scales but the national one (urban, regional or global), but that the national level remains the most appropriate scale in geopolitical representations and language towards contemporary phenomena.
The example of returning jihadist fighters to European countries and the adopted repressive measures is just one of the many examples related to the shifting framework of national, supranational and international power relations and the contested role of the national state because of increasing globalization. Although this phenomenon is relatively small in its size, it has a great impact on national, supranational and international security issues and received great attention in practical and popular geopolitics. By discussing this recent example of a cross-border phenomenon in the Dutch context, it discovers how geopolitical representations on statehood play a role in the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates on the role of the state towards Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and the repressive measures. The main question is:
“How are geopolitical representations on the role of statehood manifested in the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates on Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and the adopted repressive measures?”
After studying the theoretical background on debates on statehood and geopolitical representations, the following sub questions can be drawn up which will help to find the answer to the main questions. First, in accordance to the statement by Müller (2012), the context in which the debates occur are important to understand why some things are being said or written and to illustrate the Dutch case study we are dealing with. Moreover, it takes the role of supranational and international organizations into consideration as they become increasingly important in the geopolitical framework for international relations (Murray & Overton, 2015).
The first part of this research is based on the following questions:
1a. “What kind of repressive measures does the Dutch government adopt towards
returning jihadist fighters from Syria and Iraq?”
1b. “What is the role of the European Union and the international context in formulating
Dutch policies towards returning jihadist fighters from Syria and Iraq?”
Secondly, it became clear from the theoretical study that the role of the state is traditionally based on three principles: sovereignty, territory and citizenship. Hence, the conceptualization of these principles forms the fundamental basis to understand how the role of statehood is presented throughout debates in practical geopolitics (parliamentarian) and popular geopolitics (media). This results in the following research questions for the second part of this research:
2a. “How is the role of the state conceptualised through sovereignty, territory and
citizenship in the Dutch parliamentarian debates?”
2b. “How is the role of the state conceptualised through sovereignty, territory and
citizenship in the Dutch media debates?”
From the theoretical framework, it can be concluded that the debates and geopolitical representations on the transformative statehood based on the principles of sovereignty, territory and citizenship became increasingly challenged through globalization processes. The cross-border phenomenon of Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and the repressive measures further challenge the role of the transformative statehood in the modern era. The next chapter discusses the research design of this thesis to provide an answer to the problem statement.
3 Research design
The aim of this research is to illustrate the Dutch policy and the additional parliamentarian and media debates towards repressive measures against returning jihadist fighters from Syria and Iraq. This research is meant to provide a geographical or geopolitical perspective by discussing how the role of state is presented through the conceptualization of sovereignty, territory and citizenship in these debates. It concerns an exploratory research from a geopolitical perspective on this particular topic concerning desk-research and qualitative methodologies. In this chapter the operationalization, methodologies, the research sample and the analysis strategies are outlined.
3.1 Operationalization of concepts
Through operationalizing abstract constructs from the problem statement are converted into concrete and researchable entities. Statehood plays an important role in this research, but it is a difficult concept to measure. Because this thesis involves a qualitative research, it is chosen to focus on themes to describe the statehood which are based on the theoretical discussion in chapter 2. The modern statehood is characterized by three interrelated principles: sovereignty, territory and citizenship. These themes are in itself also abstract constructs which deserve more attention and the operationalization of these concepts are therefore structurally outlined in table 3.1.
Furthermore, there are other important methodological choices to mention with regards to concepts and definitions. Firstly, in the academic literature, scholars frequently use the term ‘foreign fighter’ to refer to the phenomenon of conflicts attracting individuals that lack citizenship or any other kind of kinship with the competing parties (Hegghammer 2010; Malet 2010 and 2015). However, for this thesis it is preferred to use another terminology, because from a Dutch perspective there is little foreign about the ones returning to the Netherlands since they are officially Dutch citizens. Furthermore, the only way in which ‘foreigners’ are created is through the Western framework on state and citizenship. In this case, about 70 percent of the fighters are originally born in Muslim countries in North Africa’s Maghreb or the Middle East or the (grand)sons of immigrants originating from these Muslim countries (Schmid, 2015, pp. 3-4). So rather we should rather name them based on their common religious background and shared agenda to join jihadist-inspired terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq: jihadist fighters (see e.g. Bakker & de Bont, 2015).
Secondly, the approach towards (returning) jihadist fighters is characterized by both preventive (soft) and repressive (hard) measures. The soft measures are aimed at preventing individuals to become jihadist fighters and the reintegration of returnees through the involvement of a very diverse organizational structure including schools, families and local communities (Vidino et al., 2014). This thesis focuses on the repressive side of the adopted measures, because of the central role of the government and government institutions. The repressive measures include both administrative measures – revoking citizenship and imposing entry bans – and measures within the criminal justice sector – extraterritorial prosecution resulting in long prison sentences (Vidino et al., 2014). It is, however, possible that both repressive measures as well as soft measures are used interchangeably in policies and debates, because both measures are often used as complementary strategies to address the phenomenon
(Vidino et al., 2014). During the data collection and analysis, such combinations must have taken into account, because the one does not exclude the other.
Table 3.1 Operationalization of the principles to define statehood
Concept Dimension Theme/indicator
Sovereignty
“a claim to authority” (Haynes, 2001, p. 144)
Aspatial understanding on statehood (Johnston, 2001)
Political authority The right and ability to rule over collective goods and public order without the interference of others (Agnew, 1999; Haynes, 2001).
Legal and institutional framework
The legal and institutional structure of the state apparatus which is shaping the functionally of the state (Agnew, 1999; Behr, 2008).
Territoriality
Geography: “a portion of
space enclosed by boundary lines”
(Gottman, 1973 in Johnston, 2001, p. 683)
Political geography: “A material, spatial notion establishing essential links between politics, people and the natural setting” (Gottman,
1973 in Johnston, 2001, p. 683)
Borders and bordering practices
In the traditional sense, the main function of borders is the demarcation and protection of the state (Behr, 2008), which makes the state a territorially bounded space.
In critical writings, borders became re-examined as “legal,
security, socio-psychological and ideological functions that would constitute the construction of political space” (Behr,
2008, p. 364).
Relational Territory must also be seen in its relation to others: as a differentiator between the internal (domestic) and external (foreign) (Behr, 2008; Johnston, 2001).
In the era of globalization, territory became increasingly connected to other territories at different scale levels. Johnston (2001) is therefore working towards a theory of
inter-territoriality in which a mosaic of states is operating in a non-fixed international system by constantly being restructured from forces from multiple directions and dimensions.
Citizenship
“The formal link between a state and the class of individuals that most closely identified with that state”
(Forcese, 2014, p. 555)
Legal status (political)
The legal status of being a state citizen amounts to a set of rights, duties and privileges, or “the rights to have rights” (Forcese, 2014, pp. 555-556). In practice, this legal status is acknowledged by having an official identification document. Political identity
(social/cultural)
Citizenship is also an identity or expression of membership to a political community (Kymlicka, 2003). All actors of the nation are integrated by shared norms, values and political practices (Behr, 2008), which makes integration a key element for the political community.
3.2 Study on Dutch policies and the European and international context
The first part (1a and 1b) discusses the Dutch case study towards returning jihadist fighters and adopted measures as being a contextual framework in which the parliamentarian and media debates are occurring. The aim of this study is to examine the phenomenon in the Dutch context and outline the Dutch policies and measures considering the European and international developments and legal frameworks. The answers be found are based on a literature study which proves to be highly valuable for shaping contextual data. The documents used are policy reports and research papers by the ICCT1. This independent organization “conducts
relevant and evidence-based research while aiming to provide practical and solutions-oriented policy recommendations. Research areas include comparative analysis of counter-terrorism policies, strategies and interventions, country and regional analyses, the foreign fighter phenomenon and forward-looking trends and threats analyses.” (ICCT website, n.d.). The
issue on jihadist fighters is one of the main topics of interest of this organization and is, at the time of writing this research, counting over sixty publications on this topic since 2013, varying in topic and perspective. The literature list of the analysed policy reports can be found in Appendix 1.
3.3 Study on parliamentarian and media debates
The second study (2a and 2b) addresses the questions of how the role of statehood is discussed in the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates on returning jihadist fighters and repressive measures. Because of the deconstruction of geopolitical representations and the exploration spatial concepts, this study belongs to the field of critical geopolitics. This approach views language as a powerful tool to make politics, policies and symbols that can shift the power-relations and that words define how one looks at particular phenomena and policies (Hajer, 2006).
The used methodology for this study is content analysis to unravel both obvious and less obvious expressions of power, explore patterns for using concepts and make comparisons over time (Boréus & Bergstörm, 2017). It is an approach to “systematically break-down,
categorize and the content of texts” (Boréus & Bergstorm, 2017, p. 24). Essentially, content
analysis consists of both a quantitative and qualitative approach in which the former is concerned with counting and describing what is explicitly there (raw data) and the latter is a method for systematically describing the meaning of the texts (Boréus & Bergstorm, 2017, p. 24). They argue that these methods are not necessarily different in kind but in degree, and it is very useful to use both as complementary elements. One of the disadvantages of content analysis is that it is poorly suited for studying the underlying implied meanings of words or themes (Boréus & Bergstörm, 2017).
Additionally, discourse analysis focuses on the framing and the meaning of certain words and studies the ideational aspects in texts. Political discourse analysis investigates how an object of study is constructed in linguistics. It is therefore not necessarily method- or theory
driven research, but a problem-driven approach based on some general questions as how it is
conceptualised, how and why it is sustained, and when or how it has changed over time (Glynos et al., 2009). This approach questions encountering entities in social life as fixed and argue that politics of power are essential to its formation. Political entities like states can be conceptualized through particular discursive structure: “In short, whilst objects clearly ‘exist’ independently of
any particular discourse, their meaning and significance for situated subjects - and how they are engaged with - depends on these discursive articulations” (Glynos et al., 2009, p. 8). As
discussed in the theoretical framework, states are constructed entities imbued with power (Häkli, 2001; Foucault, 2007) and through geopolitical representations on statehood throughout the debates the underlying interpretation on how statehood is linguistically constructed can be identified.
The research entities consist of two samplings of the Dutch parliamentarian (practical geopolitics) and media debates (popular geopolitics). The Dutch parliament is composed of two chambers: the Eerste Kamer (Senate) and the Tweede Kamer (House of representatives); together the Staten-Generaal. The main task of the Tweede Kamer is to control and formulate new legislation, before it is reviewed by the Eerste Kamer (TweedeKamer.nl, n.d.). The composition of representatives in the Tweede Kamer is determined by an electoral system of proportional representation of the different political parties over the 150 seats in the chamber. This means that there is no ruling absolute majority resulting in the formation of a coalition of the political parties with the – in theory – largest number of seats in the chamber. The ruling government is comprised of Ministers and State Secretaries who are member of the parties in the coalition. They are responsible for the formulation and implementation of legislation in the Netherlands. The remaining parties together form the opposition (Parlement.com, n.d. a; b; c). The political parties in the Tweede Kamer are characterized by a varied range of both ‘traditional’ liberalist and socialist parties (e.g. VVD and PvdA) and relatively new left-progressive or extreme-right populist parties. A detailed description of the political parties can be found in Appendix 2.
The documents selected for the first part of this analysis are from the website of the
Tweede Kamer which contains all reports and additional documents of the parliamentarian
debates. The keywords used were, on the one hand, the broadly used term for ‘jihadists’ (jihadisten in Dutch) to describe individuals who pledge their allegiance to terrorist organizations as Islamic state and, on the other hand, Dutch terms for describing the phenomenon of individuals travelling to Syria and Iraq: Syriëgangers, jihadgangers,
jihadstrijders, IS-strijders. This yielded a total of 37 results including plenary debates, oral
questions, general political considerations and budgets. The use of the different key words eventually resulted in saturation which creates a final list of the search results (Appendix 3). Strikingly, all parliamentarian debates using these key words took place from September 2014 onwards. This already implies that the debate about jihadists was fostered by the developments in Syria and Iraq. However, because of the scope of this thesis, it is impossible to include all 37 results.
For the final selection of the debates the following criteria were taken into consideration: the theme/topic of the debate and its relevance to Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and repressive measures; the involvement of a large number of political parties to ensure as comprehensive analysis as possible; and ensuring the best possible distribution over time. After a short orientating analysis based on these criteria, it became clear that the plenary debates are the most valuable documents for this research. Strikingly, there has not been any major plenary debate in 2019. Hence, to avoid creating the impression that the debates have come to an end, the oral questions of February 2019 are also included. This resulted in a final list of six documents for the analysis of the parliamentarian debates (table 3.2). This sampling strategy may cause some serious biases in the data which will be reflected upon on the discussion. During this time period under research, there has been a shift in the political relations regarding the composition of the coalition and the opposition: from November 2012 to October 2017, the PvdA and the VVD were the coalition with 79 seats of out 150; from October 2017 until recently, VVD, CDA, D66 and CU are together with 76 seats the coalition (Parlement.com; n.d. d).
Secondly, critical geopolitics is also interested in texts and discourses in popular geopolitics (mass media). Müller (2012) argued that in addition to the political elite, the media also play an important role in the production of geopolitical narratives. In order to identify if there is any overlap between the fields of practical and popular geopolitics in terms of discussed themes, developments, or references to each other, it is chosen to use the same time periods in which the parliamentarian debates took place. The same key words for selecting the parliamentarian debates were used in Nexis Uni2 to create a selection of the media debates.
Since there is a wide range of available newspapers, two were selected for this particular analysis. The two selected newspapers are De Telegraaf and De Volkskrant, because both are positioned in the top-3 newspapers with the largest circulation and highest numbers of subscribers throughout the Netherlands (Stimuleringsfonds voor de Journalistiek, 2018). Therefore, it is assumed that these newspapers will reach the largest audience in the country. Moreover, these newspapers are chosen because of their position in the Dutch media landscape and different perspective in the editorial content. De Telegraaf is a general, ‘popular’ newspaper which audience is composed of people from different classes in society (Bakker & Scholten, 2011), in particular by adhering a conservatist perspective and populist writing style. De
Volkskrant is originally a pillarized catholic newspaper and targeted at the higher educated part
of the Dutch population. In general, De Volkskrant is one of the ‘quality newspapers’ in the Netherlands. (Bakker & Scholten, 2011). The differences between both newspapers may be interesting to their perspectives on returning jihadist fighters and the adopted measures. In total,
De Volkskrant published 37 articles and De Telegraaf published 39 articles. See Appendix 7
(table 1) for the full list of the newspaper articles used for the analysis. Because there were little to no references between the parliamentarian and media debates, the debates are discussed separately in different chapters.
Table 3.2 List of selected parliamentarian debates for analysis
3.4 Analysis strategy
The analysis of texts is a step-by-step and cumulative process (Boréus & Bergstörm, 2017). For the quantitative analysis in the content analysis, data matrices are used to fill in the ‘raw data’ on descriptive information and counting results. The analysis of the qualitative data is characterized by the following process: 1) the exploration phase for finding words and themes interesting to the subject matter through open coding, 2) specification phase in which the researcher looks for structure by ordering the codes and identifying similarities and differences between the assigned codes by axial coding of themes, and 3) the reduction phase in which the
2 Research database for newspapers
Date Title debate (in English) Type debate
04/09/2014 Approach to Dutch jihadist fighters Plenary debate
26/02/2015 Revoking Dutch citizenship after terrorist offences Plenary debate 27/01/2016 Returning Dutch jihadist fighters and infiltration by ISIS in the refugee flow Plenary debate
23/02/2017 AIVD-report: Dutch returnees Plenary debate
12/06/2018 Syrian IS-fighter in the Netherlands Plenary debate
broader scope of the narrative(s) within the debates is formulated (Baarda et al., 2013). To effectively go through these different phases, the computer program Atlas ti proved to be an efficient tool for coding, structuring and analysing data. The codebook for qualitative analysis, obtained by open coding, can be found in Appendix 4. Because the language of the texts is written in Dutch, the quotes used in chapter 5 and 6 are translated into English. This may affect the accuracy of the texts, but it is necessary to present the results in the most convenient manner. The original Dutch texts can be found in Appendix 6 (table 12) and Appendix 7 (table 2). Moreover, the names and abbreviations of Dutch (governmental) organizations and institutions are translated and, if necessary, explained in the footnotes.
3.5 Constraints and limitations
The main advantages of doing desk research on secondary data and discourses analysis are that a researcher does not have to depend upon informants, as well as its flexible character to employ on all kinds of documentation (Boréus & Bergstörm, 2017). However, any research has multiple practical, analytical and ethical constraints and limitations. A practical constraint of this research is the time-consuming content analysis of the chosen parliamentarian and media debates, among which some with a significant volume. To ensure the feasibility within the time-scope for this research, a selection of the research entities has to be made. Consequently, this results in analytical constraints regarding the sampling and generalization of the outcomes since relevant and interesting documentation are excluded from the analysis to guarantee feasibility. The assumptions made from the analysis only apply for this particular case study in this specific time slot. Finally, there are no major ethical issues which should be taken into consideration. See Appendix 5 for a detailed elaboration on the ethical procedures and questions.
A final note is the positionality of the researcher as a geographer and human-being. As England (1994, p. 244) argues, research is not a product, but rather a process which is also influenced by the positionality and interpretation of the researchers when making geography. Although as objective as possible, throughout this research, some choices, assumptions and interpretations are made based on the researcher’s positionality (based on personal characteristics as age, origin, political preference etc.). It is not the intention to represent a (political) perspective, nor is it desired to criticise one or another’s opinion towards this particular topic. Moreover, the researcher has no personal connection to the topic of Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq when it comes to religious background and friendly or familial ties to individuals involved in the phenomenon – neither with Dutch jihadists nor political or professional relationships. As a geographer, it is in the interest of the researcher to present a valuable yet underexamined perspective – a geographical one – to an extremely recent and contested phenomenon in Western countries nowadays.
In this chapter, the research design for the content analysis on the Dutch parliamentarian and media debates were outlined. It moreover included the operationalisation for the most important concepts to define statehood which are the fundamentals for the content analysis. Prior to that, and as earlier explained in the theoretical framework, the context must be examined to understand in which the developments and debates occur. The next chapter outlines the results on the literature study on the ICCT reports to illustrate the context, followed by an extensive elaboration of the debates on the phenomenon and the Dutch statehood.
4 Dutch jihadist fighters and the European and international context
This study consists of an exploration of a Dutch case study on the approaches towards returning jihadist fighters from Syria and Iraq and the context in which these developments occur. Based on a literature study of policy-analysis reports by researchers linked to the International Centre for Counter Terrorism, the following questions will be answered: “What kind of repressive
measures does the Dutch government adopt towards returning jihadist fighters from Syria and Iraq?” and “What is the role of the European Union and the international context in formulating Dutch policies towards returning jihadist fighters from Syria and Iraq?”. Since it
is important to understand the context in which the parliamentarian and media debates occur, this study aims to provide a concise, yet informative context. It is important to mention that the policies towards jihadist not solely focus on the repressive side, but they are complemented by ‘softer’ preventive measures focused on integration and rehabilitation of (returning) jihadists. However, because this thesis focuses on the repressive side of the approaches, this remains the focal point of this chapter. Detailed references to the reports can be found in Appendix 1.
4.1 International context
The events in Syria and Iraq are seen as the important catalyst for the increasing number of jihadist fighters from all over the world joining terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq. Initially, it was assumed that the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 was an isolated, domestic conflict as part of the Arabic spring. However, the combination of unstable political circumstances, state failure, the Syrian civil war and the repression of the Sunnis by the Shiite government in Iraq resulted in the rapid emergence of Islamic State since 2014 (Schmid, 2015a; 2015b) which officially proclaimed a caliphate in Syria and Iraq on the 29th of June in 2014.
Schmid (2015) argues that the rise of Islamic State must be understood as the product of the will to establish a bigger Islamist movement across the world following the US-intervention in Iraq in 2003. Through the convenient use of the cross-border cyberspace, Islamic State has attracted an unprecedented number of foreign jihadist fighters compared to the past (Schmid, 2015). Because of the Syrian civil war, followed by the rise of Islamic State and the interference of an international coalition, the continuing violence resulted in the so-called European refugee crisis from which, according to Eurostat, the highest number of migrants in 2015 came from Syria. Mehra (2018) states that Europe has experienced the highest number of asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq; 339,000 applications from Syria and 156,000 from Iraq between January and October 2017. This refugee crisis became an important issue in the case of returning foreign fighters since it has been framed as a ‘free pass’ for terrorists to enter the EU (Reed & Pohl, 2017a), fearing this new wave of returning foreign fighters3 who have received more “training for covert operations, more are battle hardened, and more may be part of a network of individuals that IS established in Europe to assist with and engage in attacks” (Dawson, 2018,
p. 4).
3 Scholars often make the distinction between the first generation European jihadist fighters – who left their
home country to fight for violent Islamic organizations in prior conflict, such as Afghanistan or Bosnia – and the recent (second) generation – the ones that travel to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State or other jihadist
By the end of 2016 and 2017, several experts reported the steady deterioration of the Islamic State losing territorial grounds (Mehra, 2016; Reed & Pohl, 2017a; 2017b), pointing out the possibility of a higher number of returnees. By the end of 2018 and begin 2019, international armed forces and the Kurdish army reported the last strongholds of Islamic State are under attack and expected a soon decay of the self-proclaimed Caliphate. However, several scholars warn that this should not be considered as the end of jihadism. The Islamic State project is just one of the many chapters in the history of jihadism and has further contributed to the existing networks and a global jihadist movement (Clarke, 2018; Coolseat & Renard, 2018), and not forgetting the existence of a virtual caliphate (Dawson, 2018).
Besides the international development, there are also two international binding agreements that appear to be important for the formulation of (supra)national policies towards returning foreign fighters: 1) UNSC4 Resolution 2178 presented and adopted on 24 September 2014 and 2) the
Convention of the reduction of statelessness from 1961.
The first serves as an integral tool for national and multilateral foreign security presenting a more balanced response through combining repressive and preventive approach (Global Center, HSC & ICCT, 2014, pp. 2-3). Most importantly, the resolution includes several legal and criminal law related implications, such as the requirement to criminalise the (attempt to) travel for the purpose of terrorist aims; perpetration of terrorist acts, training, financing or recruitment. States should moreover actively prevent the travel of terrorist through border control and the confiscation of travel documents (Global Center, HSC & ICCT, 2014, p. 9; Reed et al., 2015, p. 8; Mehra, 2016; Paulussen & Pitcher, 2018). However, because of the unclear and inconsistent definitions of foreign (terrorist) fighter and no concrete set of tools and measures (Global Center, HSC, ICCT, 2014, p. 14; Paulussen, 2015), there is room for fragmented interpretations and implementations resulting in incomplete and far from uniform legislative updates across Europe (Mehra, 2016). Moreover, it received a lot of criticism by human rights organizations for being too broad in their definitions and lack of attention for the human rights system (Paulussen & Pitcher, 2018) by referring to the ‘ever-expanding national security state’ – especially in Europe – pointing out ‘legislative fever’ and administrative measures as dominant guidelines (Paulussen, 2018).
Secondly, the Convention on statelessness prohibits revoking citizenship if it results in statelessness (Bakker et al., 2013, p. 18). Nationality is considered as a fundamental human right, because it is the foundation for the acquisition of other human rights (Global Center, HSC and ICCT, 24 December 2014, p. 11). Revoking citizenship can thus only be achieved under the condition of dual nationality. This international agreement is a guiding principle in the formulation of Nationality Acts worldwide.
The Syrian civil war is also an interesting case regarding international humanitarian law. Although the Syrian civil war is officially a non-international armed conflict, in which the ICC5
is not (yet) involved, international humanitarian law still applies through, for example, national jurisdiction on the principles of territoriality (a crime committed on a state’s territory) or active
4 United Nations Security Council 5 International Criminal Court
nationality (citizenship status) (Bakker et al., 2013, p. 10; Paulussen, 2013). In the realm of the decay of the Islamic State and the post-conflict situation, Mehra (2017; 2018) discusses both possibilities related to the question of how and where to bring European jihadist fighters to justice. The most convenient option is to prosecute the crimes committed by jihadist fighters based on the principle of territoriality by the national courts of Syria and Iraq, if there is a well-functioning legal system in the post-conflict landscape, which may be somewhat troublesome conditions in this case (Mehra, 2017). Alternatively, jihadist fighters can also be prosecuted by European national courts based on the principle of active nationality – a criminal offence is committed by individuals with their nationality status, either extraterritorial prosecution– or passive nationality – a criminal offence against their nationals (which is rarely done in the case of jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq) (Mehra, 2018). Moreover, national courts may also rely on the universal jurisdiction in cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, but this is rarely done because of the difficulty to investigate and prove international crimes to be committed. Therefore, Mehra (2018) currently identified a worldwide tendency to prosecute jihadist fighters by the ordinary national terrorism laws.
4.2 European context
By the end of 2013, the number of jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq from European origin was estimated to be between 1,100 and 1,700. Most of them are from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and France (Bakker et al., 2013, p. 2). In 2014, this number was already updated to 1,900 Western Europeans out of a total of 11,000 individuals across the world (Hennessy, 2014). In January 2015, the Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence indicated that the flow of Western Europeans travelling to Syria is increasing at an alarming rate, mentioning that nearly one fifth (4,000) of the total number of foreign jihadist fighters (20,000) have a European nationality (Paulussen, 2015; Schmid, 2015b), mostly with an immigration background (Schmid, 2015a). These numbers are significantly higher compared to other historical cases (Schmid, 2015b).
The impact of the phenomenon on European societies is examined by Bakker & De Roy van Zuijdewijn (2015) and they argue that, although the incidents which involve European (returning) jihadist fighters are relatively small and sporadic, the impact of jihadist terrorism and jihadist fighters on European public and politics is very large. This resulted in attempts on a European level for a decisive and all-encompassing counterterrorist approach towards returning jihadist fighters which is part of the broader European counter-terrorism strategy. This European counterterrorism strategy is based on four pillars: Prevent, Protect, Pursue, and Respond – either the PPPR prism (Boutin et al., 2016, p. 11). In 2013, the issue of European jihadist fighters was for the first time highlighted by the EU CTC6 and resulted in a series of 22
proposals to tackle the phenomenon. The CTC, Gilles de Kerchove, is the key figure in recommending policies on counterterrorism and improving communication between EU and third countries (Boutin et al., 2016, p. 11). Besides several bodies, the two EU agencies Eurojust and Europol provide legal and intelligence assistance in investigating prosecutions to the Member States. In May 2013, he stated the following:
“We have to make sure that the 27 Member States have, in their criminal book, a specific offence of going abroad for the jihad, for training purposes, how to fight, so we are working on it. Just share experience on how you start an investigation, when you start an investigation, and a prosecution. Balance the use of criminal sanctions and administrative sanctions. You may decide to freeze assets. You may decide to expel radical preachers. You may decide to withdraw social benefits. So, these are non-criminal sanctions, but which may have some impact. […]”
(G. De Kerchove, Council of the European Union, Brussels in Bakker et al., 2013, p. 7). Besides the institutional framework and opted strategies by the EU, Paulussen & Pitcher (2018) also point out the European legal framework. The European Directive on Combating Terrorism was formulated based on the wish to design a holistic, less fragmented way to address the jihadist fighter phenomenon in the EU. Most importantly, this proposal asked for the criminalisation of terrorist-related offences (receiving training for terrorism, travelling abroad for terrorist purposes, facilitating travelling or financing for terrorism). The Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism – Additional/Riga Protocol is the only supranational legal instrument which is referred to in the EU Directive on Combating Terrorism. This additional protocol requires the Member States to ensure the implementation and application of the criminal offences while respecting the human rights (Paulussen & Pitcher, 2018, pp. 7-8). This is in response to the UNSC Resolution 2178 of September 2014. Moreover, the protocol also requires some deliberation on the principle of proportionality respecting the legal aims and their necessity to protect the democratic society while excluding any form of discrimination, racism or arbitrariness (Paulussen & Pitcher, 2018, p. 8).
Despite the efforts to work on a more coordinated response towards the European jihadist fighter issue (Bakker et al., 2013, p. 7), the primary responsibility of tackling terrorism and jihadist fighters lies at the individual Member States – the national level (Boutin et al., 2016, p. 11). The European policies are mainly limited as a guideline which results in fragmented approaches across the different Member States. Even though on paper the European countries rather focus on the preventive side of counterterrorism, practice shows that the repressive measures still dominate approaches towards jihadist fighters (Paulussen, 2015; Reed et al., 2015, p. 7). Some argue that administrative measures in the European Member States are highly considered as ineffective, counterproductive, risk exportation, merely symbolic and violating fundamental human rights (Boutin, 2016; Paulussen, 2016). Hennessy (2014) calls for better cooperation on the European level to challenge this cross-border phenomenon. Yet, the report by Wensink et al. (2017) showed that there are still major obstacles to be overcome in terms of European cooperation on counter terrorism strategies.
4.3 Dutch jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq and repressive policies
The phenomenon of Dutch jihadist fighters is not a new one. However, with the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and the rise of terrorist organization Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the amount of Dutch jihadist fighters increased more rapidly than ever. In the spring of 2013, the ICSR7 reported that 107 Dutch individuals had travelled to Syria (Paulussen, 2013). Partly
because of these numbers, the Dutch Minister of Justice and Security raised the threat level in the country from limited (2) to substantial (3) (on a scale of four levels) in the autumn of 2013 (Bakker et al., 2013). According to the NCTV8 in November 2015, these numbers had increased
to 220 individuals that have left for jihadist purposes, of whom 40 returned, 42 were killed in battle, and around 140 remaining in Syria or Iraq. Compared to the number of legal Dutch inhabitants, these numbers are relatively high.
Many scholars have examined the causes of motivation for young Dutch men and women including religious, ideological and personal motivations. Paulussen (2015) and Reed & Pohl (2017a) add the problematic political climate in the home countries as counterproductive in preventing and challenging the phenomenon, while mentioning the statements from right-wing politicians, rising populism and anti-Muslim sentiments. Paulussen (2015) refers to the anti-Islamic statements of politician Geert Wilders and also the statement by the Dutch Prime Minister Rutte (saying that Dutch jihadists in Syria and Iraq could rather die in the conflict zone than coming back to the Netherlands), that had provoked a lot of criticism (Coolseat & Renard, 2018).
Although the Dutch approach towards jihadists claims to be characterised by a combination of preventive and repressive approaches, the Dutch government appears to have an extensive toolbox of criminal judicial measures. In the spring of 2013, the then Minister of Justice and Security, Ivo Opstelten, introduced a variety of measures, of which the provision of article 134a of the Dutch Criminal Code, which criminalised “participating in armed jihad or
jihadist training abroad” (Bakker et al., 2013, p. 18) including preparation and recruitment,
was the most important one. This provision has led to the conviction of Mohammed G. and Omar H. on 23 October 2013, which was likely the first conviction of alleged Syriëgangers in Europe (Bakker et al., 2013, p. 19; Paulussen & Pitcher, p. 13). These two men, however, have never been to Syria and were solely convicted based on their intention to travel to Syria using ordinary criminal law provisions (Paulussen, 2015). Nevertheless, the spokesman of the OM9
referred to these cases as a legal precedent that clarified the fact that it is illegal to travel to Syria and which would help in future prosecution of alleged Syriëgangers (Bakker et al., 2013, p. 19; Paulussen, 2013). Importantly, this already took place before the UN Resolution 2178 in 2014. In December 2014, Maher H. was found guilty by a Dutch court of preparing murder crimes with terrorist intent while being in Syria (Global Center, HSC & ICCT, 2014, pp. 13-14; Reed et al., 2015, p. 9).
Perhaps the most controversial case in the Netherlands was that of Laura H., a female fighter who was convicted for planning and facilitating terrorist attacks (Mehra, 2018). Convictions like those of Maher H. and Laura H. were based on the active nationality principle meaning that “foreign courts [in this case The Netherlands since the criminal offences were committed in Syrian of Iraqi territory] can assert jurisdiction on the condition that a criminal
offence is committed by their nationals.” (Mehra, 2018). Finally, trails in absentia are recently
more frequently used in the Dutch jurisdiction. In February 2017, the OM has announced that they will start with criminal investigations against all 190 Dutch jihadist fighters who travelled
8 National Coordinator Terrorisme en Veiligheid (translated: National Coordinator Terrorism and Security) 9 Openbaar Ministerie (translated: Public Prosecutor Service)
