Those who incite sedition and spread misguidance pursue a rigid ideology that justifies sacrificing entire populations for the sake of false projects, satisfying their desire to destroy nations and seize power. Extremist thought only targets stable countries. Experts confirm that all extremist movements, upon closer examination of their origins and strategies, trace back to a single root, explaining the similarities among extremists, regardless of their geographical, linguistic, or ideological differences. This shared characteristic allows them to influence young people, employing elements such as violence and hate speech, which contribute to the normalization of these ideas and the promotion of their extremist ideologies through the exploitation of digital platforms. This allows them to amplify their ideologies and influence youth and adolescents.

In recent years, the Kingdom has been subjected to fierce incitement campaigns that have left no area untouched, igniting their flames with every event the Kingdom experiences. The instigators wear all forms and guises to influence societies and achieve their goals. However, the awareness of Saudi society has made it cognizant of what is being plotted against its homeland by the advocates of incitement and sedition.

intellectual crisis

Security expert, retired Major General Salem Al-Mutrafi, confirmed that the advocates of incitement and sedition are experiencing a bankrupt intellectual crisis reflected in their arguments. They seize every opportunity in the hope of undermining the civilization, prosperity, development, urbanization, and progress that the Kingdom is experiencing. Society has become more aware of their goals, which spoils all their plans and makes it an impenetrable barrier against every instigator who hides like bats and has destructive intentions.

Miserable ideological aspirations

The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (Etidal) reveals the reasons why extremist ideology targets stable countries. It points out that stability allows countries to focus on development, serving the real interests and tangible needs of their people. In contrast, extremist ideologies rely on rigid, dogmatic aspirations that justify sacrificing the ambitions of their people for false projects, viewing destruction as an achievement and development as a crime. Stable countries consider every crisis a passing moment that must be overcome to return to their fundamental tasks of attending to the requirements of quality of life in the present and ensuring their future security. Crises, on the other hand, are considered part of the ideology of extremism in all its forms, which must be deepened, intensified, and pushed toward an anticipated global war. Therefore, stability is seen as a refutation and a hindrance to this anticipated war.

(Moderation) adds that stability is a real test of the sincerity of the promises and pledges made by extremists through their promotional and polarizing discourse. Because they do not have any real project other than calling for destruction and conflict, the absence of crises in the world and the prevalence of stability among countries will inevitably deprive them of the suspended situation created by conflicts, which plays the role of an umbrella that hides the emptiness of their quiver of solutions to people’s problems, and exposes the absurdity of their projects when compared with the achievements of stable countries.

The spectrum of extremism is complex

Moderation adds that stability strengthens loyalty among societies and nations, preventing the growth of negative feelings and hateful, unhealthy emotions among people. This deprives extremists of their primary source of material, which they constantly relentlessly circulate, amplify, and disseminate. Extremists need despair, resentment, and escalating hatred to successfully incite extremist emotions, while stability fosters hope, peace, and coexistence—all of which act as a shield against the influence of extremist rhetoric.

The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology poses the question: What unites the diverse currents of extremism?

He affirms that the spectrum of extremism is complex in terms of its manifestations, images, and intellectual and doctrinal sources. Despite this variation in appearances and masks, all extremist currents, when examined in terms of their origins and strategies, trace back to a single root that explains the similarity between the features of extremists, no matter how far apart they are in terms of geography, languages, and beliefs.

He added: This justifies the cooperation between extremist organizations at the global level, to the point that extremist groups that are supposedly at opposite ends of the sectarian and ideological spectrum join forces on the ground to facilitate their terrorist and hostile operations.

The author of "Moderation" explains that the common thread among extremists lies in their hostility to the law, which they consider an obstacle to their destructive projects. They do not hesitate to sacrifice the public interest to achieve their nihilistic goals. This makes lawlessness a shared characteristic among them, which necessarily includes hostility towards the sovereignty of states.

Empty objects

The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (Etidal) affirms that the more vigilant the mind is, the more immune it is to being drawn into extremist positions. Conversely, the more the mind becomes lethargic and inclined towards laziness, the more vulnerable it becomes to falling into the clutches of the polarization networks that organizations spread on social media networks. These networks rely on a populist discourse that plays on narrow sensitivities and spreads false news that, over time, becomes like established facts, through which the extremist justifies his hostile positions against everyone who does not share his affiliation with his organization, and in return, he becomes a guardian over his followers in all aspects of their lives. Thought, feeling, and attitudes, as they can, through organizational upbringing, which in the last generation of extremists has become very rapid, change their intellectual and national coordinates, depriving them of their authentic references and basic constants, so that they turn into empty beings who are content in passivity with amplifying the echo of extremist statements, which have continued to poison life and distort its identities, all without the extremist having any willingness to make an effort to rethink or verify all those false assumptions that fill his mind and cover it with a veil of ignorance.

spiteful, hateful, and bigoted

(Moderation) explained that before an extremist becomes spiteful, hateful, and intolerant towards anyone who does not share his organizational affiliation, he is an empty person who replaces solid knowledge, which requires the effort of scrutiny and consideration, with violent incitement ideologies that create among the followers of organizations that closed-mindedness that they show even towards their partners in the world of extremism and terrorism. Indeed, disagreement, discord, and schism within the same organization often take a disastrous form of fighting, takfir (excommunication), threats, and intimidation, considering that the extremist does not carry in his head ideas that are discussed, but rather blind convictions that have accumulated in his conscience, due to influences more than rational arguments. These are black clouds of intellectual confusion, in which stories, emotions, and claims are intertwined, and which cannot be refuted by counter-arguments, simply because they are not based on rational arguments, but rather on emotional judgments, which are often pathological. Therefore, when the extremist turns towards his opponents, he is not able to engage in constructive dialogue with them. Rather, what he excels at is the discourse of provocation, argument, conflict, lying, deception, and cunning. This inability to engage in dialogue is, in fact, a product of those blind emotions that extremists experience.

The "Moderation" initiative explained that extremist organizations focus on promoting themselves through slogans, making recruitment somewhat effortless. Enthusiastic engagement with a few well-worn phrases, constantly repeated in the organization's discourse, is sufficient. These phrases promise followers salvation. What most provokes these individuals is subjecting them to scrutiny and critical examination, which inevitably reveals that the simplicity of the slogans masks a profound ignorance of the intricacies and complexities of the issues—aspects that extremists refuse to delve into or even approach. The proliferation of slogans among extremist groups has created a generation of terrorists equipped with all the necessary prerequisites to engage in the most heinous acts. This preparation occurs through brief sessions lasting only a few months, or sometimes just a few weeks, in front of digital materials that their creators carefully condense into slogans.

Prosecuting instigators by law

Legal advisor and lawyer Rami Al-Sharif confirmed that Article Nine of the Anti-Cybercrime Law stipulates that anyone who incites, assists, or agrees with another to commit any of the crimes stipulated in this law shall be punished if the crime is committed based on this incitement, assistance, or agreement, with a penalty not exceeding the maximum penalty prescribed for it, and shall be punished with a penalty not exceeding half of the maximum penalty prescribed for it if the original crime is not committed.

He stressed that Article Six of the same system stipulates that anyone who produces, prepares, sends, or stores, via the information network or a computer device, anything that would prejudice public order, religious values, public morals, or the sanctity of private life, shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not exceeding five (5) years and a fine not exceeding three million riyals, or by one of these two penalties.

He explained that anyone who creates or publishes a website on the information network or a computer device for trafficking in human beings, or facilitating such trafficking, or creates, publishes, or promotes materials and data related to pornographic networks or gambling activities that violate public morals, or creates or publishes a website on the information network or a computer device for trafficking in drugs or psychotropic substances, or promoting them, or methods of using them, or facilitating their use, will be punished.