MINSK, 18 May (BelTA) - Domestic extremism is doubly dangerous, therefore we need new forms of antidote to this threat, national security expert Aleksandr Tishchenko said in an interview with the SB. Belarus Segodnya newspaper, BelTA has learned.
"Modern extremism is an instrument of hybrid warfare. Its purpose is to achieve military goals without an invasion: to destroy society and the state from within. As a rule, this destructive activity is cloaked by the ideas of ‘democratic missionary',” Aleksandr Tishchenko said. "Our history has seen many of these missionaries. Thus, Napoleon wanted us to have ‘European civilization' and Hitler - ‘new order'. We remember how it turned out for our people. In the past these ideas were carried on bayonets now by domestic extremism. This is why it is doubly dangerous. Today we need new forms of antidote to this threat. The new laws must become a real shield to protect the nation and society. For the first time the new laws call things by their proper names and adequately qualify modern threats.”
Last week the president signed a law to amend the Law on Countering Extremism. It enshrines the notion of an “extremist formation” (a group of citizens carrying out extremist activities or facilitating or financing such activities).
The law has excluded the current narrower concept of an “extremist group”. It introduced the term “extremist symbols and attributes”. The new law includes Nazi symbols and attributes as one of the varieties of such symbols.
The list of government agencies fighting against extremism has been expanded. Now it includes justice bodies, bodies of financial investigations, a number of national government bodies, local executive and administrative bodies.
Law enforcement agencies will take care of coordinating efforts of the entities in charge of counteracting extremism.
The government will keep lists of organizations, groups, individual entrepreneurs, and citizens involved in extremist activities. Among other things, these lists will help make decisions on deportation, denial of entry, termination of citizenship, restriction of the right to occupy certain posts (civil service, military service), restriction of the right to perform certain activities (teaching, publishing, activities relating to the legal turnover of weapons and explosives).
In addition to the prosecutor general, prosecutors of the regions and the city of Minsk have been vested with the authority to suspend the operation of organizations and file applications with courts in order to recognize organizations as extremist and terminate their operation.
The Civil Procedure Code also states how fast courts have to process cases on recognizing an organization as an extremist one, on liquidating an organization, on recognizing symbols, attributes, information products as extremist materials, which is within one month of accepting the relevant applications.
