Qatar intent on combating financial crimes: Cabinet

The Cabinet on Wednesday reviewed the adoption of the mutual evaluation report of the anti-money laundering, combating the financing of terrorism and financing of proliferation system in Qatar during the general meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which was held in Paris from Feb. 20 to 24, 2023; and its outcome which confirms that Qatar has a very strong legal and regulatory framework in this field.The Cabinet affirmed Qatar's commitment to combating money laundering and terrorism financing, improving and strengthening the control system, updating related plans, and enhancing participation and contribution to international efforts to combat financial crimes.The Cabinet directed the government agencies concerned, the National Counter-Terrorism Committee, and the National Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Committee, to work on implementing the recommendations contained in the report, in order to achieve more positive results.HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani chaired the Cabinet's regular meeting held through video conferencing.A statement issued by HE the Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs said at the outset of the meeting, the Cabinet renewed Qatar's strong condemnation and denunciation of extremists in some European countries continuing their criminal and provocative practices that contradict the most basic rules of ethics, customs and civilised behaviour, pointing to burning a copy of the Holy Quran by an extremist group in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.The Cabinet underlined that committing these reprehensible and irresponsible acts in this blessed month would inflame feelings of hatred, stir up strife and encourage extremism, which threatens the values of peaceful coexistence.The Cabinet reiterated calls upon the international community to take measures to ensure respect for religions and criminalise violations of their sanctity, stop the wave of fanaticism, extremism and unjustified hatred against Islam and Muslims in some countries, and work to spread a culture of brotherhood, tolerance and peaceful coexistence among countries and peoples.The Cabinet took note of the Shura Council's approval of a draft law on documents and archives.The draft law aims to regulate the handling, classification, preservation and protection of public, historical, national and other documents.The Cabinet approved draft decisions of the Minister of Interior regarding:A- Formation of committees to examine appeals and grievances for the Central Municipal Council elections.B- Formation of election committees for the Central Municipal Council elections.C - Formation of voter registration committees for the Central Municipal Council elections.The aforementioned draft decisions come in preparation for the imminent elections of the 7th session of the Central Municipal Council 2023.The Cabinet approved: a- A draft agreement for cooperation in the legal field between the government of Qatar and the government of the Dominican Republic. b- A draft memorandum of understanding in the field of education and training of diplomats between the Diplomatic Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Qatar and the Azerbaijan University for Diplomatic Studies affiliated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.Also, the Cabinet reviewed the study prepared by the National Cyber Security Agency on the appropriateness of setting a unified budget for government agencies to implement cyber security requirements, and took the appropriate decision thereon.