ARTICLE REVIEW

This article tells about the 22 year old man named Jan Silovsky who was
a former mechanic from a sleepy town in the western part of the Czech
Republic that decided last year to travel to Syria to take up arms for the Islamic
State. He’s the first Czech citizen convicted on terrorism charges. According to
the psychiatrists who evaluated his mental health said he had schizoid
personality disorder, which significantly lowered his ability to control his own
actions. In which his intelligence is above average but his personality has
developed disharmoniously and shows signs of lacking emotion, reticence, and
difficulties in building relationships with other people. Mr. Silovsky’s sentence
includes mandatory psychiatric treatment. During the two-week trial, which
has riveted the country, the defense team sought to portray Mr. Silovsky as a
lost and mentally unstable man who had come under the influence of
manipulative terrorist propaganda. But prosecutors said that he had willingly
sought to fight in the ranks of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The authors show that Mr. Silovsky’s evolution from small-town boy to
would-be terrorist began about four years ago, while he was attending
vocational school. In his third year there, feeling increasingly depressed and
isolated, he turned to the Bible but said that he put it aside after reading the
Old Testament. He then bought a Quran. Moreover, it was resulted for his
conversion to Islam that leads him began learning English and Arabic, and
started to search for information about the Islamic State. In addition, he
wanted to reach Jarabulus, Syria, which was under ISIS control where the
Turkish police officers detained him for questioning that leads them to return
him to the Czech Republic. The Czech authorities investigated him until July,
when, he admitted to the authorities that he wanted to become an ISIS fighter.
At that point, he was arrested. In his first appearance before the court this
month, Mr. Silovsky said he had wanted to go to Syria but did not want to kill
anyone. “I wanted them to kill me,” he said. When asked why he wanted to die,
he said he had been suffering from anxiety, had no friends and no girlfriend,
and had tried to kill himself four years ago but told no one.

Furthermore, experts say the case has shown how Islamic State propaganda can influence
vulnerable young people, even in a country with few Muslims. The points made by the author are valid
and it does provide the result after. This article is significant because it shows the real situation.
Nevertheless, stricter penalties for terrorism crimes as well as new types of terror-related crimes should
also focus on media education and promote awareness of how to deal with online propaganda.

Czech Is Sentenced to Prison for By JAN RICHTER

Trying to Join ISIS
Posted 24 FEB 2017
PRAGUE — A former mechanic from a
sleepy town in the western part of the
Czech Republic had never even met a
Muslim when he decided last year to
travel to Syria to take up arms for the
Islamic State.
On Friday, the mechanic, Jan Silovsky,
22, was sentenced to three years and
three months in prison for his effort to
join the terrorist group, the first Czech
citizen convicted on terrorism charges.
“He acted with the aim to join the
Islamic State’s operations and induce
significant harm or death,” said the
judge, Martin Kantor.
Mr. Silovsky faced 12 years to life in
prison for supporting terrorism, but
psychiatrists who evaluated his mental
health said he had schizoid personality
disorder, which significantly lowered
his ability to control his own actions.
“His intelligence is above average but
his personality has developed
disharmoniously and shows signs of
lacking emotion, reticence, and
difficulties in building relationships
with other people,” a psychiatrist,
Vlastimil Tichy, told the court. Mr.
Silovsky’s sentence includes mandatory
psychiatric treatment.
During the two-week trial, which has
riveted the country, the defense team
sought to portray Mr. Silovsky as a lost
and mentally unstable man who had
come under the influence of
manipulative terrorist propaganda.
But prosecutors said that he had
willingly sought to fight in the ranks of
the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or
ISIL.
“He was fully aware that he would be
killing people,” said a prosecutor, Jan
Kubias.
Mr. Silovsky’s evolution from small-
town boy to would-be terrorist began
about four years ago, while he was
attending vocational school. In his third
year there, feeling increasingly
depressed and isolated, he turned to
the Bible but said that he put it aside
after reading the Old Testament. He
then bought a Quran.
“It appealed to me much more. I
considered Islam generally better that
Christianity,” he told the court, adding
that he secretly converted to the
religion.
“I was not in touch with any other
Muslims, in the Czech Republic or
abroad,” he said. “Nobody knew of my
conversion, not even my mother.”
His parents had divorced when he was
3, and he grew up with his mother and
sister. Mr. Silovsky worked for an auto
parts manufacturer after completing
school.
“He worked very hard, he was always
on time,” his boss at the company told
the Czech news media in August, after
Mr. Silovsky was arrested.
Other people who knew him said he
never smoked or drank alcohol, and
would rarely talk to anyone. His
mother, who appeared before the court,
said she had no idea of her son’s
support for the Islamic State.
After converting to Islam, Mr. Silovsky
began learning English and Arabic, and
started to search for information about
the Islamic State.
“The things they were doing didn’t seem
that terrible to me,” he told the police
after his arrest. “I liked their ideology
and the fact they wanted to unite the
Middle East and form a single state
there. I wanted to help them.”
Last February, he bought a ticket to fly
from Prague to Gaziantep, Turkey, and
reserved a car at a local rental agency
so he could drive to the Syrian border.
He wanted to reach Jarabulus, Syria,
which was under ISIS control.
During a stopover in Istanbul, Turkish
police officers detained him for
questioning. The next day, the Turkish
authorities returned him to the Czech
Republic. The Czech authorities
investigated him until July, when, the
authorities said, he admitted that he
wanted to become an ISIS fighter. At
that point, he was arrested.
In his first appearance before the court
this month, Mr. Silovsky said he had
wanted to go to Syria but did not want
to kill anyone. “I wanted them to kill
me,” he said. When asked why he
wanted to die, he said he had been
suffering from anxiety, had no friends
and no girlfriend, and had tried to kill
himself four years ago but told no one.
However, Mr. Silovsky told had police
investigators earlier that he thought he
would be killing “Syrian soldiers as well
as Americans for being imperialists and
Russians for killing Muslims.” He also
told the police he would have been
willing to carry out executions, “but
only of those who deserve it —
murderers or drug smugglers.”
“I would shoot those people; I would
certainly not cut their throats,” he told
the police.
Experts say the case has shown how
Islamic State propaganda can influence
vulnerable young people, even in a
country with few Muslims. During four
decades of Communist rule in Central
and Eastern Europe, immigration was
relatively low, and today, only about
20,000 of the Czech Republic’s 10.5
million inhabitants are Muslim.
“Islam in its fundamentalist form
provides simple guidelines,” Dr. Tichy,
the psychiatrist, testified at the trial.
“The way the Islamic State is presented
in the media can be very appealing for
such frustrated individuals, although I
do think they would be disillusioned
once they get there.”
Miroslav Mares, a Czech expert on
terrorism, said in an interview: “What’s
interesting here is that, apparently, the
man had no ties with the Muslim
community and is an ethnic Czech.”
“I think ISIS could have an appeal for
being seen as ‘pure evil,’” Mr. Mares
said. “In the 1990s, people like Silovsky
might have become neo-Nazis. But
today, it’s groups like ISIS that seem to
attract them.”
Mr. Mares said the Czech authorities,
which last year introduced stricter
penalties for terrorism crimes as well as
new types of terror-related crimes,
should also focus on media education
and promote awareness of how to deal
with online propaganda.
Richter, Jan (2017) Czech Is Sentenced to
Prison for Trying to Join ISIS. Retrieved 7 March
2017 from
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/world/
europe/czech-republic-isis-jan-
silovsky.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollectio
n%2Feurope&_r=0