ASTANA – Kazakh Special Forces prevented 12 terroristic and violent extremist acts in the nation in the past few years. Since the start of 2017, they have also been able to prevent a single citizen from leaving for overseas to be involved in terrorist activities, said National Security Committee Deputy Chairperson Nurgali Bilisbekov at a government session in the capital, reported Kapital.kz.
Photo credit: Kapital.kz
He added changes for the better emerged through prophylactic work, re-enforcing tolerant and religious awareness and immunity for ideological radicalism.
Preventive action on religious extremism has been enhanced at educational institutions, awareness-raising activities are being conducted via the E-Islam website, and the Akniet rehabilitation centre, which manages convicted radicals, is also operating.
“Target-focused prophylactics covered 32.1 percent of non-traditional religious movement adepts in 2016 and 90.7 percent for all years the programme was implemented from 2013-2017. The intentions of 91 Kazakhstan citizens to leave for abroad to take part in armed hostilities alongside international terrorist organisations were rendered abortive and supressed,” said Bilisbekov, according to the news website.
As a consequence of the work conducted, 81 students were returned to Kazakhstan and 177 people were diverted from travelling to theological facilities abroad. Committing terrorist and other violent extremist acts were shut out in the country during the reporting period. In total, 123 radicals were convicted for terroristic and religious-extremist crimes.
The forces were unable to prevent two terrorist acts committed by radicals last year in Aktobe and Almaty, according to Bilisbekov. As a result, conditions have been created to improve the safety of places vulnerable to terrorism.
The readiness of regional and field offices for response to terrorist threats and minimising and relieving the consequences of terrorism acts advanced from 89.9 percent to 91.7 percent, noted Kapital.kz.
“That being said, implementing the programme showed the need to develop action against religious extremism and terrorism. The analysis shows that the dynamics of citizens’ involvement in destructive religious movements is not decreasing. Radicalising the religious population of the country is going on, with counter propaganda of ideological radicalism remaining a problematic area. Young people, students and school pupils are a basic group overtaken by counterpropaganda. The unemployed are a covered share of other categories; the marginal part of society amounts to about 10 percent. There is a need to systematise and make a consistent effort by expository groups to dissuade the core audience susceptible to non-traditional and radical views,” he added.
