“Foreign NGOs help recruit terrorists in Russia”

The Head of Russia’s Federal Security Service [FSB] Nikolai Patrushev has accused “some foreign nongovernmental organizations” of abetting international terrorists. He claims that NGOs are assisting the emissaries of foreign terrorist organizations to carry out recruitment on Russian territory.

At a meeting in Moscow of the National Anti-terrorist Committee, Patrushev said that “the results of analysis of the operational situation in the Southern Federal Area shows that bandits and their helpers are making efforts to ideologically indoctrinate young people and top up their ranks”,

“Emissaries of foreign terrorist and religious extremist organizations are using socio-economic problems, ethnic, national and religious differences, and are trying to carry out recruitment in other regions of Russia as well. They are provided with information support to a considerable extent by certain foreign nongovernmental organizations”, the Head of the FSB stated.

“Domestic and international experience show that the use of enforcement measures reduces the level of terrorist threat, however this will remain while there is a system creating the infrastructure for terrorism, first and foremost, its ideology”.

Representatives of foreign NGOs in Russia, such as Human Rights Watch, have called on the Head of the FSB to provide evidence to back up his statements. Advisor to HRW for Russia and the CIS Alexander Petrov called the statement by the Head of the FSB a “dishonest game”.

The Director of the Russian section of the Wold Wildlife Fund Igor Chestin called the statements alleging links between NGOs and terrorists absolutely irresponsible and unproven. He reminded people of the law on non-profit making organizations passed two years ago in Russia which had led to the closure of several thousand NGOs. He stressed that not one of these organizations had been closed for subversive activities and that they had been forced to suspend their work solely due to complicated bureaucratic procedure.

From a report at www.grani.ru