BEIJING – The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countriesjointly foiled more than 360 terrorists and extremist schemes last year andarrested 695 suspects, Liu Jie, deputy director of the executive committeeof the SCO’s regional anti-terrorist structure, said.
More than 160,000 posts and 3,000 social media accounts containingterrorist and extremist content had also been blocked under the SCOframework, he was quoted by China Daily here on Monday.
“Different countries need to seek common ground while setting asidedifferences to fight extremism and terrorism and establish worldwideprevention and cooperation mechanism,” he added.
He said extremism was the theoretical support of terrorism, while terrorismwas often the result of extremism, so extremists and terrorists shared acommon ideology and their networks were codependent.They had become thecommon enemy of mankind.
“Member countries of the SCO have agreed that we need to attach greatimportance to measures to curb the spread of extremism online thatparticularly targets young people between 18 and 30,” Nurlan Akkoshkarov,Deputy Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation OrganizationSecretariat, said during an international symposium on counter-extremism.
More than 60 officials, diplomats and experts participated in the symposiumheld by China Association of Friendship in Beijing.
The SCO has eight member states, including China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Indiaand Pakistan, and many members have suffered from extremism, terrorism, andseparatism that have led to many violent attacks.
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Javid Ahmad Qaem, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to China, said Afghan forces hadbeen fighting the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, “which is a terroristorganization that poses a major threat to China as it seeks independencefor the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.”
“Although the presence of ETIM in the country is weak and only exists inborder areas with China, it is still our target during counterterrorismmissions,” Qaem said.
Qaem said Afghanistan had attached great importance to preventing youngpeople from becoming extremists by improving its education system andenhancing internet control.
Different countries had adopted different measures to combat extremism andterrorism, and China’s experiences were very valuable, said KairatOsmonaliev, a professor at Kyrgyz National University. In Kyrgyzstan, forexample, extremists’ confessions were used to educate others about the harmof following extremism.
In Uzbekistan, people could learn what religion was all about fromtelevision programmes sanctioned by the government, Osmonaliev said.
