Dagestan blocks access to 40 extremist sites

Dagestan in the first month of 2016 has blocked access to 40 Internet resources, the republic’s Press and Information Minister, Aznaur Adzhiyev, said at a meeting of the Anti-Terrorist Commission,Tass reported.

"In July-December 2015 about 100 resources having extremist features were exposed. At the end of January access to more than 40 resources was blocked," the press-service of Dagestan’s head and prime minister quotes Adzhiyev as saying.

The Press and Information Ministry said it had created a group of four qualified specialists monitoring the world web on the permanent basis.

"Print and electronic media, Dagestan’s segments of the social networks and blogs are being scrutinized for the presence of anti-constitutional, nationalist and extremist publications. Monitoring lists are dispatched to the authorities concerned," he said.

Dagestan’s mass media have selected journalists commissioned for creating anti-terrorist content.

"A group of journalists, experts and bloggers specializing on the problems of extremism and terrorism has been created.

It incorporates members of the anti-terrorist committee in Dagestan, the executive authorities, law enforcement agencies, the Dagestani Research Center under the Russian Academy of Sciences and local universities.

In the whole of 2015 about 1,300 anti-terrorist materials have been placed in the mass media," Adzhiyev said, adding that clerics were being actively involved in resistance to extremism.