SOCHI, August 29 (Itar-Tass) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev believes the North Caucasus needs a special comprehensive program that would prevent youth from going astray.
“Regrettably, militant groups are still successful in luring young people into the web of their criminal activity, this is a hard fact,” Medvedev said on Friday at a conference devoted to ways of supporting Muslim organizations in the North Caucasus.
“To my mind it would be appropriate for us to devise a comprehensive program for youth in the North Caucasus,” he said. “Such a program would incorporate educational, enlightenment, morality and ethnic components, as well as measures to create jobs and arrange for normal, up-to-day and decent pastime.”
“This matches well the decisions we made lately in favor of complementing the school curriculum with the basics of religious culture,” Medvedev said.
The spiritual and moral development of youth is a major concern of the federal authorities.
“The Muslim clergy does share this concern,” he said. “In line with the existing legislation the state in every possible way supports religious Muslim organizations and Muslim educational establishments,” the president said. A week ago a new Islamic University opened in the Chechen Republic – a third in the Caucasus.”
“North Caucasus is a part of Russia that is absolutely unique from the standpoint of its cultural and ethnic diversity,” Medvedev said. “It is a home for 157 ethnic groups of the 182 that there exist in Russia – according to the population census of 2002. The share of those who identify themselves as Muslims is more than two-thirds.”
Naturally, said the president, the role of the muftis’ councils in influencing the state of the public mind in the region is great.
Medvedev thanked the leaders of the republics and clergy for their efforts to maintain inter-confessional peace and accord and their readiness to resist extremism, xenophobia and social injustice.
“I am perfectly aware that you have to work for this goal in adverse conditions, and sometimes to put your life at risk,” he said.
The Islamic community of the North Caucasus has developed very fast over the recent years. Ever more mosques are built and educational and cultural centers are opened. A hundred new mosques are built in the region every year and over 15,000 Muslims make annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
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