Medvedev turns to Muslim clerics to counter radicalism
SOCHI: President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday urged Russia’s top Muslim clerics to join hands to stop radical groups from wooing the youth in the turbulent North Caucasus.
He proposed launching a Muslim TV channel to tackle religious insurgency in the region. “Unfortunately, criminal gangs still manage to recruit young people for their activities,” Medvedev told clerics and regional leaders at his summer residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. “It will be right to work out a programme for working with the young in the North Caucasus,” he added. Earlier this year, the Kremlin ended security restrictions in the region in a gesture intended to show a return of stability to the province now run by a pro-Moscow government.
A wave of suicide attacks and armed assaults on police and security forces in Chechnya and next-door Ingushetia and Dagestan marked the holy month of Ramzan in Russia’s North Caucasus. The teachings of radical Islamic insurgents, who challenge traditional Muslim clerics loyal to Moscow, are increasingly popular in the Northern Caucasus, where people face poverty, corruption and widespread abuse of power by officials.
Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who was seriously wounded in a suicide bomb attack in June, said military pressure on rebels was no answer. “We need to rebuild the system of public values,” he said. “We cannot force people to give up Internet or close these sites,” Medvedev said, proposing such alternatives as a television channel to promote mainstream Islam. Medvedev proposed stronger control over young people returning to Russia after studying Islam abroad. Mainstream clerics say many Islamic schools in Arab countries spread radical teachings. “There indeed must be control,” Medvedev said. “Unfortunately these people are returning ... (and) bring back rigid views on Islam,” he said. reuters
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