Riyadh (AsiaNews) - More than 90 "extremists" tweets are posted per minute in Saudi Arabia, almost 130 thousand per day. The figure emerges from a statistic made public by the Ministry for Islamic Affairs, about which Abdul Moneim Al-Mushawwah, director of Peace Campaign, conducted by the Ministry, spoke of dwindling numbers than in previous months, although the statistic has a margin of error of 30 percent, because the data was manually collected.
According to Arab News, he claimed that extremist groups like Al-Qaeda are weakening geographically and intellectually, even on the Internet. However, unrest and chaos in some areas "are reviving their activities."
Al-Mushawwah said more than 500 accounts have been shut down belonging to
individuals promoting the activities of organizations including Jabhat Al-Nusra
and Ahrar Al-Sham. In this context, he called for the creation of a national body to
monitor, analyze and provide information on messages that promote extremism on social
media.
In the fight against extremism, it seems that the Ministry for Culture and
Information has decided to close Al Wesal, a religious television network. The
Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja did not specify the reasons for the decision, but
said that "the ministry, in collaboration with the security officers and
brave citizens, with strong determination, those who incite conflict".
"Terrorism - he added - has no religion and terrorists are enemies of all
religions and mankind."