As internet counselling services go, its scope is, at the very least, ambitious. The latest in online help services is designed to address the most extreme of social problems: the danger of straying into international terrorism.
The service, set up by the authorities in Saudi Arabia, sets out to persuade anyone thinking of joining Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network to think again. There is also a hotline for families worried that their sons are dabbling with murderous extremism.
Despite the formidable challenge, the Saudi authorities say the website has had a great deal of success.
Saleh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh, Islamic affairs minister, said more than 250 people of the 800 who had contacted the site had decided to forsake terrorism. ”The rest are still continuing contact,” he said at an international counterterrorism conference in Saudi Arabia.
Although the internet has long been a favoured tool for Islamist terrorists seeking recruits, the Saudi initiative is believed to be the first to use it so directly to divert young men away from the militants.
Following a triple suicide bombing in Riyadh in May 2003, the Saudi authorities cracked down on al-Qaeda militants and religious scholars who support them.
They have also run a media campaign to encourage Saudis to renounce violence and to make parents aware of signs that their sons could be being drawn towards terrorist groups.
Saudi Arabia is home to the austere Wahhabi school of Islam, which is blamed by some critics for fostering militancy. But Sheikh said that, since the internet service began last year, religious scholars are counselling terrorists ”one-to-one” to persuade them of their errors. – Guardian Unlimited Â