# # Security Is a Collective Responsibility # #

Achieving security and tranquillity in societies is no longer the product of the efforts of the security services alone; rather, it is a collective responsibility of an integrated and comprehensive effort by all individuals, institutions, bodies, agencies, government and private companies and all components of civil society.

Raising the public’s security awareness and understanding of the challenges facing the country externally and internally, and knowledge of the nature of the new wars targeting the state and of the use of social media to promote rumours and lies to spread a spirit of frustration and doubt about government policies, with the aim of undermining the cohesion of the internal front and trying to create an environment favourable to spreading chaos again and threatening the entity of the state, has become a necessity.

The citizen’s awareness of his responsibilities and duties towards his society and the protection of national security as a constitutional and legal obligation and a national duty, and not slogans to be repeated. It is an inevitable necessity.

The undertaking by the Ministries of Culture, Education and Higher Education, the religious institutions, civil society, political parties, the National Media Authority and the various institutions that adopt curricula for developing awareness to include in those curricula and programmes lectures on legal and security education and to acquaint citizens with their constitutional rights and duties towards their homeland, society, family and work is necessary and inevitable.

Encouraging citizens to report to the authorities and the security and oversight agencies any information, incidents, evidence or suspicious movements, or cases of financial or administrative corruption, terrorist financing, the infiltration and disappearance of terrorist elements, incitement to violence or threats to national unity, contributes to supporting the police’s efforts in performing their mission, aborting hostile plans and crimes that disturb stability in society, and preserving the gains and achievements realized.

The security and police services must continue to adopt media and advertising campaigns to change the image some people have of the role of the police and their constitutional responsibility in serving the people, so as to remove any fears or apprehensions among individuals who report any crimes or cases of corruption and to guarantee them legal and security protection. This is to encourage and maximize the role of citizens in protecting the security of the homeland.

On the other hand, the draining of the police forces’ efforts in burdens, services and security assignments that are not theirs, as a result of the lack of awareness of some leaders and managers of their responsibilities in the field of security in some service institutions, and their failure to play their role in building a security system specific to each organization and including in its strategy crisis management and plans for security, firefighting and evacuation, by contracting private security companies or relying on security personnel after preparing and qualifying them in the specialized police training institutes, so as to achieve the organization’s goals and improve its services. As is done in banks.

For the police are not responsible for filling the administrative and organizational gaps resulting from poor management in the various service institutions. It falls on the leaders and managers of the various service institutions and bodies to follow up their work in the field, solve existing and accumulated problems, speed up digital transformation, organize the services their institutions provide to the public, and treat the elderly and people of determination well, so as to satisfy the public dealing with them without placing additional burdens on the security services without justification, with the securing and organization of the services of those bodies being one of the elements for evaluating the performance of their leaders.

No state in the world relies on the police and security services to organize the services of government agencies unless there is information or a security threat that requires their presence, such as evacuating areas struck by natural disasters or distributing aid to those affected and other work in cases of necessity, or any threat to public order and security and the securing of property.

It is unreasonable to request police services to organize the visitors to post offices, real estate registry offices, Foreign Ministry notarization offices or supply offices, or to distribute bottled gas cylinders and the like, to organize those dealing with those bodies or others, because of a defect in the performance of management and its responsibility for ensuring that its services are completed with quality and speed.

The time has come to rationalize police services and not to load them with the additional burdens placed on their shoulders for years, and to assign each institution to shoulder its responsibility for its work and the organization of its services.

Rationalizing security services and lifting the routine services placed on them by other bodies without security justification gives a greater opportunity to train police personnel and raise their physical fitness and skills in order to raise the level of security performance and preserve security stability in the country, in light of the democratic targeting of states that are free in their decisions and seek to achieve the interests of their peoples without dictates or direction from anyone.