Moscow, 8 April: Fifty-nine NGOs supporting Chechen separatists and terrorists operate outside Russia, Aleksandr Torshin, deputy chairman of the Federation Council and a member of the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC), has told Interfax news agency.

"Foreign NGOs often turn into platforms for recruiting terrorists and extremists. What is particularly alarming is that in most cases they recruit young people," Torshin said in his interview to RIA Novosti news agency on Tuesday (8 April) after an NAC meeting.

At the meeting, Torshin presented a report on the work of the federal executive bodies to provide information countermeasures against terrorism.

Torshin said that up to 100 anti-Russian propaganda events are held in European countries every year, such as conferences, meetings, marches, and seminars. Among these countries Torshin mentioned Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Turkey, and some of the Baltic and Scandinavian countries.

"Unfortunately, even the official agencies in western countries use the information they receive from these events to asses the situation in Russian regions, and this is used for further propaganda events," Torshin said.

Torshin also stressed the importance of integrated information counteraction to the ideology of terrorism disseminated among Russian communities outside Russia, and the role of the foreign factor in the origins of "manifestations of terrorism in Russia" in general.

The deputy chairman of the Federation Council also pointed out that the importance of the Internet in promoting terrorism has exceptionally grown in recent years.

"In 1998, terrorist organizations had only 12 websites on the Internet. By some estimates, now they number between 5,000 and 6,000; approximately 150 of them are in Russian," Torshin said.

Torshin added that "such a powerful vehicle for disseminating information (as the Internet)" up to now has not been (officially) recognized in Russia as a medium of mass communication, and thus it does not fall under the restrictions imposed by the law on mass media.

In view of this, Torshin proposed that uniform criteria should be worked out under which websites could be recognized as terrorist ones.

"It is necessary to work out techniques for spotting such websites and for constant international and national monitoring of their operation, as well as a mechanism for closing down these websites," Torshin said.

The deputy chairman of the Federation Council also called upon NAC to draw up federal bills "On prevention of terrorism" and "On crime prevention" featuring a section on terrorism. These documents, he thinks, should provide legislative regulation of counteraction to terrorism and extremism in society.