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Terrorists interested in recruiting adherents among prisoners — CIS anti-terrorism center

The issue topped the agenda of an expert meeting of employees of the security and intelligence services, law enforcement bodies and penitentiary facilities held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. International terrorist organizations are interested in recruiting supporters among prisoners, the Anti-Terrorism Center of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has said.

The center’s press service told TASS that the issue had topped the agenda of an expert meeting of employees of the security and intelligence services, law enforcement bodies and penitentiary facilities held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on the initiative of the Anti-Terrorism Center and the Kyrgyz National Security Committee.

"The expert meeting was held not only due to a general increase in terrorist activities in the world and the activities of international terrorist and extremist organizations but also due to the need to promptly track and prevent major threats to the national security for CIS member-countries in Central Asia," the Anti-Terrorism Center said. "Currently, we register interest of international terrorist organizations in recruiting adherents from among prisoners with a view to using the destructive potential of criminal elements while committing acts of violence up to incitement to carrying out terrorist attacks and involvement in anti-constitutional actions."

According to the participants in the expert meeting, the issues of correction and rehabilitation of people sentenced for committing terrorist and extremist crimes require special attention of the law enforcement bodies.

"The participants in the meeting mentioned among the tasks facing the competent authorities of the CIS member-countries high-quality preventive work to prevent the merger of extremist and criminal ideologies and avoid the recurrence of crimes among prisoners and felons who served their sentence for terrorist and extremist crimes," the Anti-Terrorism Center said.

The result of a series of meeting will be guidelines that will contain specific mechanisms to reduce the spread of the extremist religious ideology and counter recruitment activities in penitentiary facilities of the CIS member-countries.