American Bedu

Saudi Women efforts to Counter Online Jihadists
Current mood: awake

Note from Carol:  I personally found this to be a very interesting article and wanted to share it.  Security does continue to be an issue in Saudi Arabia as recent events have demonstrated.  The Ideologies here in the Kingdom can span the whole spectrum from liberal to moderate to the most extreme.  However, as this article illustrates, the female department of the Al Sakina compaign are striving to make a difference towards detering extremist ideology:
http://xrdarabia.org/blog/archives/2007/03/07/countering-the-online-jihadists/
Countering the Online Jihadists
Al Sakina’s Mission to Deter Extremist Ideology
Huda al SalehRiyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat – The female department of the Al Sakina campaign states that “40% of fundamentalist forums and websites that discuss Saudi affairs are run by women.” However, this department did not state whether this figure represents native Saudi women or residents, or whether they are inside or outside of the kingdom.The female department of the Al Sakina campaign is made up of seven full-time members, two of whom are assigned to scientific and legal debates and interviews whilst the other five are responsible for expansion, establishing ties and arranging subjects. The campaign also has 11 part-time members, most of whom take part in interviews to train as many male and female interviewers as possible to be able to respond those who have adopted deviated ideologies.The duties of the female department focus upon organizing discussions online and holding meetings with a number of repentant women. The Al Sakina campaign consists of seven women and 23 men whose mission is to surf the Internet for people embracing terrorist ideology and to debate with these people according to the scholarly principles of Shariah to change false and mistaken concepts.The women highlighted that the Al Sakina campaign has succeeded at convincing half of the 200 women that it has spoken to over the past three years to renounce extremist ideology in substitution for moderation.This Asharq Alawsat article focuses on how Saudi women are stepping up to combat jihadists—notably, female jihadists–online. They are playing a part in the overall efforts of the Saudi government to discourage youths from adopting extremist ideologies, nipping the problem in the bud rather than having to fight them in the streets. The article points to the way Al-Qaeda has paid attention to women in its own outreach programs and how female extremists are more difficult to pull away from their ideologies. Very interesting reading.

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