Six Dutch active on radical misogyny platform: report
At least six Dutch are active on an online misogyny platform incels.me - a platform for frustrated men with sometimes radical ideas that preaches violence, Trouw reports based on its own research.
"Incels" stands for "involuntarily celibate". The platform recently received large amounts of attention, after one if its members - Canadian Alek Minassian - killed 10 people in Toronto last week. The men who call themselves 'incels' consider women as cold beings who are responsible for their suffering, because they do not pay them enough, or any, attention, according to the newspaper.
Minassian is revered on the platform. As is Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and wounded 14 others on a university campus in 2014 before killing himself. In a manifest released online shortly before his deed, Rodger said he did it because he was still a virgin at age 22.
Incels.me counts more than five thousand anonymous members, who posted over half a million messages since the platform was established in 2017. On the platform, members fantasize about an uprising in which 'incels' can force women to have sex with them, others fantasize about mass shootings in retaliation. There is talk about killing random people who do get to have sex, according to the newspaper. They also discuss what women find attractive. They use their own vocabulary. 'Chads' are attractive men, 'Stacys' attractive women. 'Committing an E.R.' is impersonating the mass murder Elliot Rodger committed.
Trouw found at least six Dutch 'incels' on this forum. They sometimes switch to Dutch in their chats and created a separate page for themselves where they exchange thoughts with each other. According to the newspaper, one of these Dutch men fantasizes about mass killings. He said that he wants to go "completely E.R. and kill every normal person around me". He wants to keep 'Stacys' alive as long as possible, in order to mentally and physically torture them, according to Trouw.
A spokesperson for the National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism and Security confirmed to Trouw that there is Dutch sympathy for the 'incels' movement online. But added that there is no threat from an organization that is motivated by involuntary celibacy. "That does not exclude that people can switch to such activities. Then the approach applies that is in the Netherlands applicable to threats from individuals." the spokesperson said.
Intelligence service AIVD told the newspaper that the service does not look at the phenomenon of misogyny. A spokesperson said that the AIVD is focused on threats to the democratic or legal order or national security based on ideology, such as jihadist terrorism and extremism.
