Kamil Samigullin: ‘Daesh – is the party of Satan, they are hellish people’
The international conference 'Media online: countering Daesh in the information space' opened the forum KazanSummit-2016. It was attended by Muslim leaders of Tatarstan and Russia, journalists, public figures, scientists. The correspondent of Realnoe Vremya also was among the participants.
Inform about terrorists!
The first event of the business agenda of the KazanSummit-2016 forum began, as always on such platforms, with reading the Koran. The first speaker was a member of the Civic Chamber of Russia Maksim Grigoryev. He showed the video which ISIS (Arabic name — Daesh, the organization banned in Russia) spreads on the Internet. Everyone saw the bloody footage in the background of singing 'Soon, very soon, there will be a sea of blood, Kafir heads will tremble from knives...'
The expert told how terrorists use all media means to attract more recruits. They spread in social networks detailed recipes for making explosives, use beautiful frames of the idyllic life of the militants in the occupied territories.
It is noteworthy that they use Quranic ayahs and hadiths (sayings of the prophet Muhammad) in their own interests, directing their slogans against Russia's law enforcement agencies and soldiers.
What is even more curious, the actions of ISIS members, according to him, get approval from the Ukrainian nationalists. 'Banderovites' support terrorists in their accounts in different ways.
'We're closing resources in large amounts, identifying them in hundreds,' said Grigoryev. 'But they appear again and again. We prepare slides, infographics, in order to counteract them. We do the materials in Russian, Arabic and English.'
One of the posts distributed by the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation states: 'Extremism. Terrorism propaganda on the Internet? Inform us'.
New format of MRB RT from abroad
MRB RT (the Muslim Religious Board of the Republic of Tatarstan), the organizer of the conference, chose not quite conventional format: the participants were divided into 12 round tables. The moderator voiced a question, gave 10 minutes to discuss, and a speaker from each table offered their answers. According to the deputy mufti of Tatarstan Rustam Batrov, who led the event, this format was suggested by the mufti Kamil Samigullin, who learnt about it in one of his trips abroad.
The first question was: 'What should (should not) the media inform in the context of conteracting Daesh?'
The answers boiled down to the fact that the crimes of the militants should not be glossed over. Islam should be spoken about only in a positive way, give the word to Muslims. The activities of terrorists should not be linked to Islam. About the victims of terrorist attacks should be said with the comments of theologians. It is necessary to exclude all Islamophobic statements from the media. Informational reports should be passed through the filter of authorized bodies.
The conference participants also proposed to expose the false claims of terrorists. It is necessary to expose those who support terrorism.
'We should use the statements of the Muslim influential people and to make emphasis on the Western origin of Daesh. Also, we should engage in scientific debate with their adherents,' said the mufti Samigullin.
'Hellish people'
The mufti of Tatarstan Kamil hazrat Samigullin commented on the situation with the Daesh and the methods of dealing with it specially for the field editorial board of Realnoe Vremya at KazanSummit-2016.
'On many broadcasts I talked about the problems of Daesh, that it is the party of Satan, that they are hellish people, that they are far from Islam – this is what we are constantly saying,' said the mufti.
Kamil Samigullin added that a complex of measures is needed to fight with the ideology of Daesh. It is not enough to block accounts of extremists in social media only: 'The complex measures are needed. If the youth is in Facebook – we should be there already. If they are on Twitter – we should be there, too. We need to fill this vacuum'.
'It is always pleasant to give advice to the government'
The second question was: 'What should the government do to counteract Daesh in the media?'.
Many agreed that in the first place Russia should have a fully-fledged Muslim TV channel. Now the Central television has no any program about Islam.
He also proposed to establish professional training of journalists on issues of Islam and to form a pool of professional media representatives.
The authorities should be open to journalists.
'It is always pleasant to give advice to the government. But we should not remove responsibility from ourselves,' said Rustam Batrov.
One of the proposals that the reporters liked was state support of Islamic media and journalists writing about Islam. Special funds, grants can be created for that purposes.
However, in the course of the conference there appeared a strange tendency, though if the official clergy teaches journalists how to write. In other words, there was an impression that all the responsibility lies on the media, not the religious figures.