Eighty-eight individuals were arrested for planning criminal attacks inside and outside Saudi Arabia. This number comprised various nationalities besides Saudis. Surprisingly, some of those 88 individuals were given a second chance, a few years ago, to review their radical thoughts by placing them under the care of the Mohammad bin Naif Counseling & Care Center.
The good news, as announnced by Ministry of Interior spokesman Major General Mansour Al-Turki, is that 1,900 individuals who underwent counseling in the center never went back to any criminal activities. Moreover, these individuals moved on to become cooperative and productive members of society.
I believe this success calls for harder work on education and social programs in the future. More dialogue is the need of the hour. The fact that violence and terror are growing to be serious threats to the whole world calls for more work on the grassroots level. Concurrent control of just the tip of the "iceberg" can never be trusted as a permanent solution. Foundations must be supervised and taken care of.
• The writer is the media manager of the King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences.
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