Russian Security Service chief worried about extremism being spread online

(Interfax – June 11, 2013) The director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, has said that social networksand shortcomings in migration laws contribute to the proliferation of extremism in Russia. His comments at a session of the National Antiterrorist Committee were reported by the Interfax news agency on 11 June.

“Part of the internet has become a certain source of extremist ideas. Closed groups are created in social networks, websites that carry out targeted ideological conditioning of users are boosting their activity,” he said.

“Modern-day practices in fighting terrorism point to the fact that the ideology of religious and political extremism plays an important part in the process of spreading terrorist threats,” he said.

Interfax separately carried his comments on shortcomings of migration laws, that in his words also contribute to the spread of extremism.

“Imperfections in the current migration laws create conditions for illegal migration, which contributes to the penetration of the carriers of radical religious views from abroad,” he said, adding that the FSB “identifies and stops the actions of these foreign persons in most Russian regions”.

He warned that these extremism hotbeds were not confined to any one part of Russia: “The metastases of religious extremism are not just engulfing a number of North Caucasus republics where the gang underground retains its presence, but also manifesting in certain parts of the Northwest, Volga, Siberian and Urals federal districts through underground cells of supporters of radical religious views that are being created there”.

Bortnikov also commented on preparations for the University Games in Kazan this summer.

“Today, when preparations for the Universiade are in the home stretch, their should not be any drop in the pace and quality of our work,” he said, as quoted by Interfax in a separate report. Bortnikov said that more than 20 anti-terror drills and special training exercises had been carried out in Tatarstan.

“A set of measures aimed at ensuring clear cooperation between all structures involved in ensuring anti-terror security has been developed. The algorithms for providing a rapid response to the respective threats has been finetuned, plans for priority measures to prevent them have been adjusted,” he added.