Interior Minister participates in International Security Coalition meeting

Abu Dhabi, Mar. 5 (BNA): Interior Minister Lt-General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa has taken part in the meeting of the Interior Ministers of the International Security Coalition in Abu Dhabi. The coalition, which comprises Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Senegal and Singapore, was announced in February 2017. The Interior Minister was welcomed on arrival in Abu Dhabi by the UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Lt-General Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He praised strong and historical ties between the two brotherly countries, thanking Lt-General Shaikh Saif for the excellent initiative that reflects a comprehensive vision to serve the international security efforts. The Interior Minister affirmed that the creation of an international security coalition to confront all forms of crimes was essential because of the rapid security changes. He also stressed the need to draft legislation to maintain international security and peace, pointing out the importance of reinforcing international cooperation to fight criminality, especially with the emerging new forms of organised and cross-border crimes through innovative and hi-tech methods. At the meeting, the participants were briefed on the outcome of the 2017 meetings as well as plans and suggestions for 2018 related to the agenda of the coalition countries. The coalition website created by the Interior Ministry of Bahrain was also launched. Experiences and expertise were also exchanged on the occasion to come up with a unified international vision and joint operations to exchange information about Internet gangs, international piracy, and websites with contents of an extremist nature. The meeting also focused on determining the training requirements and functioning of those handling evidence of cyber crimes. The participants affirmed in their final statement that any content of a criminal or extremist nature on the Internet represented a major international security threat and required a coordinated international response. They approved the recommendations of the technical teams to develop a comprehensive national response to deal with such content, including setting up a regional framework to define and classify the Internet content, set the mechanisms for the social media to determine high-risk platforms for each member country, and create a database of keywords, tags and digital fingerprints to block such content on the Internet. The Interior Minister also held a meeting with Singapore Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam. They reviewed security cooperation and coordination to tackle any security threats. (MOI)