JEDDAH: Three hundred Internet websites are dedicated to the propagation of “deviant ideology” compared to only five challenging extremist views, a recent report says. “The sites opposing extremist ideology are few and far between compared to the increasing number of ‘takfeeri' sites,” said author of the study Fayez Al-Shehri, a researcher specializing in the press and Internet. “Sites that preach moderation number only 80, and most statistics and reports monitoring Islamist websites are published by Israeli or Jewish organizations in America,” he said. Those reports, Al-Shehri said, “exaggerate” and are “inaccurate in their method of description”, as they classify “any site that addresses Shariah jihad as a takfeeri website”. According to Al-Shehri's report, the 300 “takfeeri” websites which incite to killing are run by unidentified persons or groups who follow deviant thought and promote terrorism. Tawfeeq Al-Sudairi, undersecretary at the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, meanwhile, has said that imams and Friday sermonizers are failing to instill “intellectual security” in today's youth. Speaking at a workshop on the “deviation of youth in Saudi society”, Al-Sudairi described the role of the mosque as “fundamental”. “It's true that there are failings in that area, but imams do have a significant part to play in the protection of intellectual security,” he said. The director general of the General Administration for Intellectual Security at the Ministry of Interior, Abdul Rahman Al-Hadlaq, described some satellite television channels as “subverting the work of government institutions tasked with the fight against extremist ideology”. “Monitoring and censorship are not enough and do not constitute a complete solution to counter extremism,” he said. “We need to step up the number of sites promoting awareness and responses which have an important role in protecting youth from deviance.” Recruitment tool Member of the Al-Munasaha extremist rehabilitation committee Ahmad Jailan said that 80 percent of terrorist organizations use the Internet as a recruitment tool targeting young people. “Al-Qaeda is increasingly using the Internet to promote itself,” he said. “They use popular websites such as YouTube to broadcast their poison.” He described the Internet as akin to a “wide ocean through which it is easy to reach young people”, and said that modern technology – such as BlackBerry devices and text messaging - need to be used to counter “deviant ideology”. The workshop said that the relevant official bodies and the family have a responsibility in ensuring that young people are provided with intellectual security, and that social and educational institutions should work with families to promote moderation, invest the energy of the young and protect them from deviant ideology. Deviancy should be ostracized from educational bodies through teaching staff, curricula, management, pupils and the general education environment, the workshop recommended, along with greater promotion of a sense of national loyalty and belonging to give youth “auto-immunity” from the “threat of cultural globalism”. Further recommendations included “investing globalism in strengthening Islamic identity”, creating global programs to assimilate youth into a program of moderation of thought and behavior, strengthening the roles of organizations and providing them with effective leaderships, and increasing young people's involvement in decision-making. Only last week Majed Al-Mursal, advisor to the Minister of Islamic Affairs and Al-Munasaha member, said that the Communications and Information Technology Commission's failure to monitor the Internet was leading to an increase in the number of extremists. “The Internet is used as an extremist propaganda and recruitment tool, and the lack of monitoring of extremist websites is contributing to this increase,” Al-Mursal said. “Extremist forces exploit the young in propagating their deviant thought. Recent studies released by Al-Munasaha committees show that 80 percent of those drawn into deviant thought are young people.”
