The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia affirmed that the resolution to combat all terrorist crimes and violence based on religion or belief comes to condemn in the strongest terms the despicable and disgraceful terrorist act that claimed the lives of innocents in an incident that struck the conscience of the world, the murder of innocent Muslim worshipers in two mosques in New Zealand. This came in the speech of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia before the General Assembly of the United Nations today, delivered by Permanent Representative of the Kingdom to the United Nations Ambassador Abdullah bin Yahya Al-Maalami. He said, "Despite the pain we are suffering from this heinous crime, we stand with respect for the New Zealand people and government. Their feelings have been filled with love, sympathy and cohesion. We also salute the Muslims of New Zealand who received these feelings with a mutual love that transcends the wounds, and affirms the tolerance of Islam." The Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations pointed out that combating the extremist discourse and ideology that fuels terrorism and violent extremism is one of the most urgent and important international challenges of the day. It is one of the priorities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as it confronted the phenomenon of extremism and terrorism thought and organization and activities and at all levels of local, regional and international, he said. He stressed that the kingdom has worked to identify the intellectual reality and investigate the root causes that led to the spread of extremism and the ideology and bases on which it relied, and developed an intellectual security strategy based on three elements: prevention, rehabilitation and care. He pointed out that all social networking sites and platforms should be effective in refuting hate speech and preventing it from publishing, whether in the form of letters, pictures or videos, and bringing its publisher to justice. The virtual world cannot be a haven for terrorists and fanatics. Freedom of expression must first and foremost respect all human beings, he stated. He added, "If we want to defeat terrorism, we must all believe that any terrorist threat to any country is a threat to all our countries. We must go beyond the narrow view of our interests without regard to the interests and security of the rest of the countries and the realization that terrorism does not belong to race, religion or nationality, but belongs to hatred and denial of the other.
