Hadlaq, head of the Intellectual Security Administration at the Ministry of Interior, has said there is no evidence to suggest that school curricula play a role in the “intellectual deviation of youth”, while a ministry study has shown that 78 percent of “deviants” failed to complete their schooling. “What has been shown is that some teachers may play a part in this intellectual deviation by directing the pupil toward violence,” Al-Hadlaq said at a discussion circle organized by Madina's Islamic University this week. Al-Madina newspaper on Tuesday reported Al-Hadlaq as criticizing the failings of “family, mosque and school” which, he said, “have not played the awareness role required of them”. “There is a study on a large number of detainees which shows that educational and social bodies have a large part to play in forming protection, and that's one part of the solution,” he said. The discussion, entitled “Intellectual Deviations of Youth: A Strategic Field Study on Saudi Society”, revealed an Interior Ministry study of 100 of the most prominent names on its lists of persons wanted in connection with terrorism and the reasons for their turning to “deviant thought” and terrorism. The head of the General Administration for Scientific and Intellectual Awareness and consultant at the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Majed Al-Mursal, said the study showed that 78 percent of persons of “deviant thought” had left education early achieving qualifications of only secondary school or below. Forty-three percent had previous criminal records such as drugs offenses. Al-Mursal said that 75 percent of the persons included in the study were under the age of 30 and had only recently turned to deviant thought or become more religious. Al-Mursal also noted that deviant thought had in the past been “mostly confined to certain introverted groups”, and that individuals had specific membership and connections with the leaders of those groups. “Now, however, we are seeing self-recruitment, whereby people can through the Internet and other forms of communication recruit themselves if they are attracted by those ideas, and can get training through the Internet and form cells with like-minded people,” Al
