President Medvedev urges special youth program for N Caucasus

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.

-0-str