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Russia faces growing extremist activities: official

Xinhua, March 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Extremist crimes have been on a steady rise in Russia, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said Wednesday.

"During the last decade, the number of extremism manifestations has been growing steadily," Kolokoltsev said at a meeting in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament.

According to the minister, over 1,000 extremist crimes were detected in 2014 alone, with the number of perpetrators growing by 25 percent.

Over 250 gunmen were killed and over 400 arrested last year, nearly all of them in the North Caucasus region, he said.

The extremism-related crimes have been spreading due to deeper Internet penetration into the Russian society, Kolokoltsev said, adding that the number of extremist activities in the cyberspace grew by nearly 39 percent in 2014.

"It's necessary to coordinate work (of various security services) to restrict access to banned and harmful content on the Internet."

According to Kolokoltsev, relevant departments are preparing an implementation plan of new national anti-extremism strategy from 2015 to 2025. Endi