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© AFP: Tauseed Mustafa
Australia's domestic intelligence agency will avoid referring to "Islamic extremism" and "right wing extremism" and has revealed it last year disrupted a foreign "nest of spies" who were seeking access to sensitive defence secrets.

Delivering his Annual Threat Assessment, director-general of security Mike Burgess declared ASIO will follow its Five-Eyes intelligence partners in changing the language it uses towards violent extremist threats.

Instead ASIO will now use the umbrella terms of "religiously motivated violent extremism" and "ideologically motivated violent extremism" to describe those seeking to do harm.

"We don't investigate people because of their religious views — it's violence that is relevant to our powers — but that's not always clear when we use the term 'Islamic extremism'," he said.

"Understandably, some Muslim groups — and others — see this term as damaging and misrepresentative of Islam, and consider that it stigmatises them by encouraging stereotyping and stoking division.

"Our language needs to evolve to match the evolving threat environment."

He said describing "left" or "right" extremism was also no longer relevant or applicable in many circumstances.

"We are seeing a growing number of individuals and groups that don't fit on the left-right spectrum at all," he said.

"Instead, they're motivated by a fear of societal collapse or a specific social or economic grievance or conspiracy.

"For example, the violent misogynists who adhere to the involuntary celibate or 'incel' ideology fit into this category."

The director-general said ASIO's language needed to accommodate those groups that fall outside "traditional" categories.

Mr Burgess acknowledged that trust in democracy was falling worldwide and since speaking about the rising threat of far-right extremists last year, ideological extremism investigations had grown from 30 to 40 per cent of the agency's counter-terrorism caseload.


Comment: Far-right extremists may exist, but they're hardly the biggest threat facing the western world. That honor goes to the social justice movement. Not only do they have their own wing of violent extremists; their ideology has infected all major institutions. They're the ones who will be using the "ideologically motivated violent extremism" label to demonize any secular dissent, and the "religiously motivated" one to demonize any religious dissent (whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.).


"This reflects a growing international trend," he said.

"People often think we're talking about skinheads with swastika tattoos and jackboots roaming the backstreets like extras from Romper Stomper, but it's no longer that obvious.

"Today's ideological extremist is more likely to be motivated by a social or economic grievance than national socialism."