Jump to content

European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (ESISC) is a European think tank and lobbying group dealing with issues related to terrorism and security. It is operated by Claude Moniquet, a French journalist.[1][2] It has been accused of lobbying on the behalf of foreign governments, including Azerbaijan and Morocco.

History

[edit]

ESISC was founded in April 2002 by Claude Moniquet. In 2019, the ESISC website listed staff members from Russia, Morocco, Italy, and Belgium. In 2018, Claude Moniquet announced that ESISC had entered into a collaboration with the Washington Strategic Intelligence Center (WSIC), "a new American think-tank."[3]

Election observers

[edit]

Representatives of ESISC participated in 2013 Azerbaijani presidential elections and 2015 parliamentary elections as observers. They evaluated the elections positively and criticized the assessments of the OSCE/ODIHR mission, in which the elections were recognized as inappropriate to democratic norms.[4]

Reports

[edit]

Report on Western Sahara

[edit]

In 2005 and again in 2008[5] and 2010[6] [7] ESISC issued reports on Western Sahara that dovetailed closely with official Moroccan views and claimed that there existed a link between Al Qaeda and the nationalist group Polisario, which seeks Western Sahara's independence from Morocco. Western Sahara expert Jacob Mundy described ESISC's publications as "think tank reports paid for by the [Moroccan] royal palace" to discredit Polisario.[8]

Le Journal Hebdomadaire, a leading Moroccan independent weekly, published an article critical of the first ESISC report and noted that it reflected the official views of the Moroccan government. Moniquet then sued the newspaper in a Moroccan court, which ordered Le Journal Hebdomadaire to pay him 360,000 dollars.[9] Unable to pay the fine, Le Journal Hebdomadaire was closed, in what Mundy termed the conclusion of a "successful five-year campaign to drive one of [Morocco's] few independent media voices out of existence".[10] According to Moroccan journalists, this was the largest-ever fine against the media in Morocco, and the Committee to Protect Journalists noted major irregularities in the trial.[11] Another press freedom organization, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), described the trial as “politically motivated and unfair.”[12] Human Rights Watch also voiced concern over the trial,[13] while Freedom House termed the lawsuit "a politically motivated effort to bankrupt the magazine."[14]

Social anthropologist of the Sahara Desert, Konstantina Isidoros, said that in both 2005 and 2008, ESISC issued two near-identical reports proclaiming distorted truths that Polisario is evolving to new fears terrorism, radical Islamism or international crime. According Isidoros "lies appear to play some peculiar importance in this report"[15]

Republic of Azerbaijan: a model of good governance

[edit]

A month before the 2013 Azerbaijani presidential elections, ESISC issued a report entitled “The Republic of Azerbaijan: a model of good governance”.[16] According to Robert Coalson, a correspondent of Radio Free Europe, the "haphazardly edited" and "ungrammatical" report praised the stable social welfare" and the situation for women and religious minorities in Azerbaijan. Noting that the ESISC website advertises "customized reports, analysis, and [...] briefings responding exactly to the needs of each client in his or her sector of activity," Coalson accused ESISC of operating as a "front" for Azerbaijan."[17] According to the “Freedom Files Analytical Center”, ESISC lobbies for Azerbaijan's interests and provides services of “false observers,” whose task is to participate in the elections of autocratic states as observers, inform on a democratic vote, and criticize the OSCE/ ODIHR observation mission.[4]

The Armenian Connection

[edit]

In its 2017 report "The Armenian Connection", the ESISC claimed that human rights organisations were attempting to take over the Council of Europe "in the interests of George Soros and Armenia" in order to attack Azerbaijan.[4] The Freedom Files Analytical Center described The Armenian Connection as propaganda and seeking to stop criticism of Azerbaijan's lobbying and corruption, and its claims as "absurd".[4] The European Stability Initiative stated that “the ESISC report is full of lies”.[18]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ L'opposition syrienne a-t-elle les moyens de ses ambitions ESISC: About Us Archived 2019-02-16 at the Wayback Machine, ESISC website.
  2. ^ "Elections 2019: Claude Moniquet emmènera la Liste Destexhe au parlement bruxellois", Le Soir, 12 March 2019
  3. ^ Claude Moniquet, ESISC and WSIC: transatlantic cooperation for two think-tanks Archived 2019-03-24 at the Wayback Machine, ESISC, 4 July 2018
  4. ^ a b c d AN EXPLORATION INTO AZERBAIJAN’S SOPHISTICATED SYSTEM OF PROJECTING ITS INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE, BUYING WESTERN POLITICIANS AND CAPTURING INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS Archived 2021-11-08 at the Wayback Machine // Freedom Files Analytical Centre (Civic Solidarity Platform), March 2017
  5. ^ Claude Moniquet, "Front Polisario : une force de déstabilisation régionale toujours active", October 2008 (English version
  6. ^ Claude Moniquet (under the direction of), "THE POLISARIO FRONT AND THE IRA - Two approaches to the process of negotiation Archived 2023-04-17 at the Wayback Machine", October 2010
  7. ^ Claude Moniquet, "The Polisario Front and the development of terrorism in the Sahel, 3 May 2010
  8. ^ Jacob Mundy, Failed States. Ungoverned Areas, and Safe Havens: The Terrorizaton of the Western Sahara Peace Process // Fonkem Achankeng. Nationalism and Intra-State Conflicts in the Postcolonial World. Lexington Books, 2015, ISBN 1498500269, 9781498500265. Pp.139-140. "Decades later, substitute "'Al-Qaeda" for "Communism" and the discourse is essentially the same. One of the first major salvos in the Moroccan offensive to link Polisario to Al-Qaeda was a series of think tank reports paid for by the royal palace (Moniquet, 2005, 2008). When a Moroccan newsmagazine, Le Journal hebdomadaire (December 9, 2005), dared expose the fact that the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Institute was being paid to tar and feather Polisario, thus began the regime's successful five-year campaign to drive one of the few independent media voices out of existence. Morocco even enlisted its academic voices to aid in the terrorization of the Western Sahara peace process by linking Al-Qaeda to Polisario. "
  9. ^ "Morocco: Pioneer of independent press silenced amid censorship worries". Los Angeles Times. 16 February 2010. Archived from the original on 2 March 2021. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  10. ^ Mundy, ibid.
  11. ^ Courts, press law undermine Moroccan press freedoms Archived 2017-08-04 at the Wayback Machine // Committee to Protect Journalists, April 6, 2007. "In April 2006, the Rabat Court of Appeals upheld record damages against the independent newsweekly Le Journal Hebdomadaire in a defamation suit brought by Claude Moniquet, head of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. A lower court had awarded 3 million dirhams (US$359,700) in damages to Moniquet, who said Le Journal Hebdomadaire had defamed him in a six-page critique questioning the independence of his think tank’s report on the disputed Western Sahara, which was annexed by Morocco three decades ago. The damages were the largest ever for a press defamation suit in Morocco, according to Moroccan journalists. Jamaï’s lawyers were prevented from calling expert witnesses, and the judge never provided an explanation for how he arrived at the extensive damages."
  12. ^ Mise à mort du Journal Hebdomadaire : une semaine pour payer trois millions de dirhams de dommages et intérêts Archived 2011-07-22 at the Wayback Machine, Reporters sans frontières, 23 December 2006
  13. ^ A record libel judgment against Le Journal Archived 2021-07-31 at the Wayback Machine, Human Rights Watch, May 2006
  14. ^ "Freedom House: Freedom of the Press 2007 - Morocco". Archived from the original on 2019-01-26. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  15. ^ Konstantina Isidoros. Western Sahara and the United States’ geographical imaginings // ACAS Concerned Africa Scholars, BULLETIN N°85 - SPRING 2010
  16. ^ William Racimora (ESISC's Vice-CEO), The Republic of Azerbaijan: A model of good governance, 9 September 2013
  17. ^ Baku Smooths Over Its Rights Record With A Thick Layer Of Caviar Archived 2022-09-01 at the Wayback Machine // Radio Free Europe, November 08, 2013
  18. ^ Merchants of Doubt or investigating Corruption // ESI, 21 April 2017
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=European_Strategic_Intelligence_and_Security_Center&oldid=1291731984"