Fighting terror by stopping drugs
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The Internet has given new impetus to terrorists in carrying out their plans, attorneys- general and prosecutors-general from member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) said at a meeting in Xiamen, Fujian Province this week.
The two-day event, which ended on Friday in this Southeast China city, was the eighth of its kind.
Chaika Yuri Yakovlevich, Russia's prosecutor-general, said that terrorists have used the Internet to push their agenda, raise funds and recruit new members.
Yakovlevich said that most terrorist organizations have their own website, and many have websites in different languages. There are several thousand websites promoting terrorism and extremism around the world, including 150 in Russia.
"The Internet is an ideal place for terrorist activities because of the free access, lack of supervision, anonymity and unlimited information dissemination," he told the seminar.
"The main trouble with investigating criminal cases is that these websites are not under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation, which keeps us from obtaining information on criminals, even if they are engaged in illegal activities within Russian territory," he said.
Yakovlevich called for greater sharing of anti-terrorism information to deal with it at the plotting and preparation level. He said real-time communication networks were needed to exchange information on these.
Maulvi Anwar-ul-Haq, the attorney-general of Pakistan, said that his country has been a primary target of terrorism for almost three decades and funds generated by drug trafficking help sustain terrorists. He said Pakistan has a zero tolerance policy toward drug cultivation.
"Stopping the proliferation of drugs and terrorism is a collective responsibility, so mutual assistance in countering terrorism and in criminal matters is significant."
Concurring with this, Cao Jianming, prosecutor-general of China's Supreme People's Procuratorate, said that one of the major sources of terrorism, extremism and separatism is international crime, especially drug trafficking.
Helping to fill out the picture was Samimzod Shehodi Odin, Tajikistan's prosecutor general, who said that human trafficking, in addition to drug trafficking, was a major funding source.
He said that Afghanistan, Tajikistan's neighbor, accounts for 95 percent of the international opium production, and that law enforcement agencies had seized a total of 4.6 tons of drugs in Tajikistan in 2009 and more than 2 tons in the first half of 2010.
Cao urged SCO member states to crack down on drug trafficking and other international crimes, and suggested that they find a way to assist in investigations, deal with repatriation and extradition, and retrieve assets across borders.
He pointed out that international economic crimes involving smuggling, money laundering, fraud and Internet gambling are on the rise in SCO member states because of the international financial crisis.
In 2009, China prosecuted 311 people arrested on charges of international smuggling, fraud, money laundering or involvement in fake patents or trademarks, Cao said.
These crimes are becoming more industrialized, more professional and better organized, he added, noting that China will train 200 prosecutors of SCO member states and 150 prosecutors from procuratorates of non-member states over the next three years.
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