Religious extremism, terrorism issues discussed in S Kazakhstan

SHYMKENT. KAZINFORM The Akimat of South Kazakhstan region has hosted a joint meeting of the Coordination Council on Law Enforcement and Crime Prevention and the Counter-Terrorism Commission chaired by Regional Prosecutor Nurgalym Abdirov and Governor Zhanseit Tuimebayev, the Prosecutor's Office press service says.

The meeting was attended by the heads of the law enforcement and public bodies of the region, cities, and districts.

The attendees considered the results of the analysis of the competent authorities' effectiveness in countering religious extremism and terrorism.

Moreover, they discussed the issues of disrupting the activities of non-traditional religious movements, making the adherents to return to the traditional religious principles, and the ways for improving the religious situation. The representatives of the prosecutor's office presented the scheme for cooperation between the authorized bodies.

Also, upon the initiative of the prosecutor's office, the participants discussed the current effectiveness of the measures taken for maintaining interethnic concord and prevention of interethnic conflicts.

Participants of the session put forward the suggestions for resolving the above mentioned issues, including increasing the number of theologians, establishing specialized divisions on solving religious problems and maintaining interethnic concord in the structure of local executive bodies, and in prosecutor's offices of some cities and districts.

Zhanseit Tuimebayev suggested setting up a working group that would draw up guidelines with regard to these areas.

Summarizing the meeting, the Governor charged the heads of the law enforcement and public bodies with respective tasks and made several arrangements in this respect.