MADINA: A security adviser and specialist on terrorism issues from Imam Bin Saud Islamic University has said that civil society organizations have a significant part to play in protecting young people from exposure to “deviant ideologies”. Yousif Al-Rumaih, Professor of Criminology and Terrorism, commenting after Saturday's statement from the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution (BIP) on progress in terrorism cases, said that civil organizations have a complementary role in the work done by the security services and courts. “The courts have begun procedures against persons accused of belonging to the deviant group and putting them on trial, while others have had final sentences given in their cases,” he said. “The state has also offered incentives to the intelligent ones and those who return to their senses and the correct path, as this ideology penetrates a number of young people and requires time and dialogue to reveal the full, dark picture.” Al-Rumaih said that the recruitment of very young people represents a “serious threat” and that “considerable efforts” were being made by deviant groups to attract persons of “little knowledge” to their terrorist cells. “They use a range of terms that spike their emotions, such as ‘jihad' and ‘victory of Islam' and ‘lifting oppression',” he said. “In that way they send those young people to the crematory and involve them in wars and regional conflicts and then re-recruit them to work in their home country and attack internal interests and disrupt the development we are all going through in the country.” He said that the upcoming period would require “great effort” to pursue everyone known to hold “bloody takfeeri ideas” and in order to keep “tightening the stranglehold on them”. “We need to improve the role of civil society organizations, starting with the family unit and moving on to the school, the mosque, and clubs that promote culture and security,” he said. “They need to foster the concept of “every citizen is a security official” to make it a tangible reality in our lives. Al-Rumaih said the family and society at large need to formulate “ideological practices and instructions” that are “generated from youthful minds”. He said that action needed to be taken from the first signs, which he described as beginning when young people “start saying others are not Muslims, bring secret publications home, or even start collecting money whose source is not known”. Other signs, he said, include “talking of death and saying it is better than life, and meeting with suspicious company that they don't want their families to know about, and the wish to travel abroad to troubled places of wars and conflicts”. He said that researchers and academics have a significant role to play in highlighting the danger of the issue by holding meetings and symposiums to promote concern for security and foster the principles of dialogue and mutual understanding between young people and scholars. Al-Rumaih was speaking in the light of the statement Saturday from the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution revealing figures on terrorist trials and convictions. The BIP said that 2,215 individuals had so far been taken to court in terrorism cases, with verdicts announced for 1,612, while investigations conducted by the specialist penal court continue to look into 603 other suspects.
