Battle against extremist websites is useless: Russian political expert

Co-chairman of Religion, Society and Security program of Moscow Carnegie Center Aleksei Malashenko tagged the battle against extremist websites useless, Tengrinews.kz reports. “Internet is full of information about extremism and instructions on how to fight. There are instructions on how to kill Muslims and Muslims are instructing on how to kill others. How can you ban this? Maybe it’s even better that these blockheads are spewing it all out on the Internet. They fight virtually and release their energy. How can you restrict and ban this? The fact that there is an instruction on the Internet on how to make the suicide bomber’s belt doesn’t mean that new bin Laden will appear tomorrow and blow himself up in Astana,” Malashenko said at the Forum of European and Asian Media on November 22 in Astana. “it is useless to try banning something and stopping the wave spreading through different websites. Internet in such case is only a tool. If there was no Internet, all the same would happen but in other variations,” he told Tengrinews.kz. Another participant of the forum, journalist Aleksei Pankin, adding to Malashenko's words, expressed his point of view: “The more people are on the Internet, the less chances there are that they will go outside, that’s why the authorities have to be interested in making Internet free and maybe even present a computer with broadband Internet access to every person suspected of opposition approach”. Kazakhstan authorities are sure that it is necessary to close access to extremist websites. Earlier Tengrinews.kz English reported that over 100 websites were blocked for spreading religious extremism.