Tag Archive for: news

Dozens of Saudi clerics, in a statement released on October 5, called for supporting the war against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as Iran and Russia, which are backing Syria in its fight against terrorism.

“Give all moral, material, political and military” support to the war against the Syrian government and its Iranian and Russian backers,Reuters quoted the Saudi clerics as saying in the statement.

The clerics also referred to the terrorists committing crimes against humanity in Syria as the “holy warriors” who are “defending” the Arab country, and called for trusting them “because if they are defeated… it will be the turn of one Sunni country after another.” 

Adama Dieng, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide and Jennifer Welsh, the UN special adviser on the responsibility to protect, slammed in a statement on Tuesday the call by the clerics in Saudi Arabia and expressed their alarm at the rise in violent rhetoric by influential religious leaders.

“Such rhetoric can aggravate the already extremely volatile situation in Syria by drawing religiously motivated fighters to join all parties to the conflict, thus escalating the risk of violence against religious communities,” said the advisers in a statement, adding that “advocacy of religious hatred to incite or justify violence is not only morally wrong, but also prohibited under international law.”

The UN officials also stressed that “religious leaders should be the messengers of peace, not of war”, calling on religious leaders around the world to refrain from any form of advocacy of religious hatred and incitement to violence.

“In situations in which tensions are high, as in Syria, religious leaders should call for and foster restraint and dialog, rather than fanning the flames of hatred,” they said.

The developments come as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Russia have formed an intelligence-sharing center in the Iraqi capital in their fight against Takfiri terrorists wreaking havoc mainly in Syria and Iraq.

Since September 30, Russia has been conducting airstrikes against the positions of the terrorists across Syria upon a request from the Damascus government.

The Saudi clerics’ letter used sectarian terms against the regional quadripartite coalition members and blamed the West for not providing Takfiri militants in Syria with anti-aircraft weapons.

“The Western-Russian coalition with the Safavids and the Nusairis are making a real war against the Sunni people and their countries,” the statement read, using the terms Safavids and the Nusairis in the same way as the Daesh Takfiri group does in referring to Iranians and Alawis respectively.

The senior rights officials also referred to the Russian Orthodox clerics’ description of the Russian campaign in Syria as a “holy battle”.

“The fight with terrorism is a holy battle and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it,” said the head of Russia’s powerful Orthodox Church’s public affairs department, Vsevolod Chaplin, quoted by the Interfax news agency on September 30.

The UN officials allso praised a move by the Organization of Syrian Christians for Peace to reject the concept of a “holy war” in the Arab country and criticizing those who invoke such a mentality.

The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which flared in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people and left over one million injured.

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Passengers on a train watched on as a helpless Muslim woman was showered in alcohol in a violent Islamophobic attack, Birmingham researchers have revealed.

The victim’s experience is one of many hate attacks on Muslims that were revealed in a study by Birmingham City University criminologist Imran Awan.

The full report, commissioned by Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), will be unveiled in Parliament today.

Believed to be the first ever study of its kind, researchers examined the impact of anti-Muslim hate crime through in-depth interviews with victims.

The woman who had alcohol poured on her said: “People were watching but they ignored it. No-one wanted to help,”

The study revealed many Muslims were reluctant to report incidents of abuse and often received little support from onlookers.

Another participant told researchers: “A man shouted to me and my Muslim friends, ‘You are terrorists, I’m gonna come to the back of the bus and stab you’.

“I told the bus driver and asked him to stop and call the police but he refused.”

Meanwhile, many Muslim women said they are removing their headscarves and men are shaving their beards in a bid to disguise their Islamic beliefs through fear of being targeted in religious hate attacks.

The study, which looked at attacks on Muslims both online and “in real life”, also uncovered evidence that men are especially unwilling to report attacks through fear of being seen as weak.

Mr Awan and Dr Irene Zempi, a criminology lecturer at Nottingham Trent University who also carried out the research, are now calling on social media websites to take threats posed to users more seriously.

Mr Awan said: “This research reveals worrying levels of fear and intimidation experienced by many Muslims, compounded by a lack of support from the wider public when facing physical threats in the real world and an absence of tough action from social media platforms at the abuse people are receiving online.

“Participants argued that anti-Muslim hate must be challenged from within Muslim communities – too often reluctant to report abuse or attacks – and that the public should intervene and assist victims of anti-Muslim hate where possible.”

Dr Zempi added: “Our participants made a number of recommendations for tackling anti-Muslim hate crime. We are determined to work with relevant organisations to ensure that their voices are heard and recommendations implemented.”

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The World Union of Muslim Women in a statement expressed condolences over the martyrdom of hundreds of pilgrims from different countries in a crush in Mina, near the holy city of Makkah during Hajj.