Gijs de Vries Quotes
"Terrorists have failed in what is arguably al Qaida's most important objective - to trigger revolutions."
- Gijs de Vries
"In intelligence work, there are limits to the amount of information one can share. Confidentiality is essential."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Intelligence, Work, Information, Limits)
"Look at Iraq; look at Afghanistan, where at great personal physical risk people have gone to the polls and have rejected the appeal from Bin Laden and his allies to stay at home."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Home, People, Afghanistan, Iraq, Risk)
"If you combat an international phenomenon, it is indispensable to share information internationally."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Information)
"You can't get closer to the heart of national sovereignty than national security and intelligence services."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Intelligence, Heart, National security)
"If information ends up in the wrong hands, the lives of people very often are immediately at risk."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: People, Information, Risk, Wrong)
"I remain optimistic. What we've seen in Europe and the rest of the world is that freedom has a much stronger attraction than radical fundamentalism."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Europe, Freedom, Radical, Rest, World)
"Europe has a long and tragic history of mostly domestic terrorism."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: History, Europe, Terrorism)
"We still lack a global definition of terrorism."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Terrorism)
"We remain vulnerable. There is no such thing as 100 percent security against terrorism."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Security, Terrorism)
"In the fight against terrorism, national agencies keep full control over their police forces, security and intelligence agencies and judicial authorities."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Intelligence, Control, Fight, Police, Security, Terrorism)
"We have an integrated picture of the threat from outside and from within that is provided not only to our foreign ministers but also to our justice and interior ministers."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Justice)
"In situations of military conflict, civil strife, lawlessness, bad governance, and human rights violations, terrorists find it easier to hide, train and prepare their attacks."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Conflict, Rights, Human rights, Military)
"We are familiar with terrorism. But indiscriminate, cross-border, religiously motivated terrorism is new."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Terrorism)
"Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Fear, Democracy, Freedom, Tyranny)
"There is a series of sectors which could be severely disrupted by terrorist attacks, particularly if they were to happen in several member states simultaneously."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: states)
"I have never come across a technology that doesn't change. This is inevitable. You have to adapt your systems as technology develops."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Technology, Change)
"The European Borders Agency in Warsaw has been created to help border forces in Europe cooperate more."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Europe, Help)
"Indiscriminate attacks on civilians ought, under all circumstances, to be illegal in war as in peacetime."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: War, Circumstances)
"Muslim organisations tend to have a low level of organisation. The communities in Europe are quite diverse."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Muslim, Europe)
"If you exchange information internationally, you must strengthen data protection. Those are two sides of the same coin."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Information, Protection)
"Terrorists always have the advantage of surprise."
- Gijs de Vries
"The central role in the fight against terrorism is with national authorities."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Fight, Terrorism)
"Terrorists have failed to trigger mass conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. We should draw strength from that fact."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Strength, Conflict, Europe, Fact)
"The idea is to have global standards. There is so much travel that if you just had a regional standard, it would probably ultimately have to be changed."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Travel, Idea)
"The key to tackling Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism from the Islamist community is in the hands of moderate Muslims."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Community, Key, Terrorism)
"The majority of the world's Muslims do not believe that terrorism is a legitimate strategy or that Islam is incompatible with democracy."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Strategy, Islam, Democracy, Majority, Terrorism, World)
"Our strategy should be to strengthen the hand of moderate Muslims."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Strategy)
"The violent radicals do not legitimately represent the overwhelming majority of the world's Muslims."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Majority, World)
"There are no automatic links between poverty and terrorism. Among millions of poor people in the world, only a few turn to terrorism."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: People, Poor, Poverty, Terrorism, World)
"It's important that we work very closely with moderate Muslim forces locally, nationally and internationally."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: Work, Muslim)
"Police forces collect information to be used in a public court to get people convicted. Security services gather information that does not necessarily lead to people being prosecuted and in many cases needs to remain confidential."
- Gijs de Vries
(Related: People, Being, Court, Information, Needs, Police, Public, Security)