About ten religious sects are active in Russia: Nurgaliyev

Khabarovsk, Aug 3: There are about 7,500 extremist websites in Russia, Russia's Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev has said. He said it was necessary to design a complex of measures to limit the Internet resources of the kind.

"We have introduced amendments to the federal law on mass media, and from now on Internet sites may be considered on certain occasions as media," he told a visiting meeting of inter-ministerial commission on fighting extremism in Russia.

At the same time, mass media may play their positive role in fighting extremism, and it is very important to keep in mind their role in modern prevention of this phenomenon, Nurgaliyev said.

"Russia also has about 10 major religious sects," Nurgaliyev said.

"This is of particular concern, because members of sects often break social connections, they give away their property, and sometimes commit serious and heinous crime" he said, stressing that "it is necessary to work in this direction."

He noted that in a number of sects flourishes violence; members of certain sects commit arson of churches and even murders.

PTI (Itar-Tass)