Archive for category: News

Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representative office in Tehran Olivier Martin voiced the committee’s readiness to help in the process of identifying the bodies of the Iranian pilgrims who were killed in a September crush in Mina, Saudi Arabia.

In a meeting with Secretary General of Iran’s Red Crescent Society Ali Asghar Ahmadi in Tehran, Martin said the ICRC is prepared to provide Iran with whatever help necessary to identify bodies of Iranians who went missing in the incident.

While 465 Iranian pilgrims are confirmed to have died in a deadly crush of people in Mina, near the holy city of Mecca, on September 24, a number of the bodies have not still been identified.

Elsewhere in the meeting, the Iranian official made it clear that Tehran will not approve of even a single pilgrim remaining unaccounted for.

Ahmadi also underlined that the Saudi government must give the ICRC an explanation for the Iranian nationals who have gone missing in the incident.

On Monday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lauded the efforts made to return home the bodies of the Iranian pilgrims who lost their lives in the crush.

The return of the bodies from Saudi Arabia came a few days after Ayatollah Khamenei sent a clear message to the Saudi government.

Addressing a military ceremony on September 30, Imam Khamenei warned Riyadh that the slightest disrespect for the Iranian pilgrims or its failure to repatriate the bodies of victims will draw Iran’s “severe and tough reaction”.

The bodies of 218 Iranian victims have been repatriated so far.

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Two British Muslim organizations have joined hands in a clean-up campaign in South Tyneside, northeast England, offering upstanding citizen role models for fellow citizens in order to create a more pleasant environment for people of all faiths.

“It went really well. We had about 20 volunteers but we had a lot of words of encouragement from passers-by as well,” Project Manager Abu Tayeb told The Chronicle on Sunday.

“We have done these neighborhood clean-up programs before in Newcastle but we wanted to spread it out more and encourage more people to get involved.

“The government’s austerity cuts have had knock-on effect (I have no idea what this is) things like littering and, as a Muslim, part of our duty is to be active in the community and help our communities,” he added.

Abu Tayeb was referring to a new clean-up campaign led by volunteers from UK Islamic organizations One Community and the Islamic Diversity Centre (IDC).

Rejecting anti-social conduct in the borough’s biggest parks, members of both groups embarked on their clean-up campaign at the Riverside Park, in Hebburn, South Tyneside.

By cleaning the park, the Muslim groups offered a true image of Islam, which instructs its followers to preserve the environment.

“Indeed, it is reported that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said ‘removing a harmful thing from the path is a charitable act.’ If we are true to the teachings of our religion, we should be having a positive effect on the world around us, and this initiative is a great way to do just that,” Abu Tayeb said.

“The beautiful thing about this campaign is you don’t have to be of a certain religion to get involved – it’s about coming together for the common good.”

It is noteworthy that South Tyneside’s Lord Mayor joined the volunteers in the clean-up campaign.

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A Muslim father and three of his children were killed after gunmen broke into their house and shot them early Monday morning in the southern Sulu province of Philippines, according to media reports.

A police report said that the Ayub family was asleep in the island town of Banguingi when three men armed with M-16 rifles barged in and fired on all the occupants around 1 a.m. (GMT1800 Sunday).

Those killed were the father Junaid Ayub, 52 year-old, and children Adzani, 3; Auja, 16, and Almasin, 10.
Two other children, Alnaid, 15 and Rene, 9, were wounded and taken to Zamboanga city hospital for treatment.

From its side police officer Sherwin Ladja said an investigation had indicated that three men carried out the attack, noting at the same time that the killers after the incident had fled aboard a motorized outrigger.

Police are still looking for a motive for the attack.

It is worth mentioning that Sulu province is a stronghold of the Al-Qaeda linked Abu Sayyaf group, while a majority of the locals possess high-powered firearms.

Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles, have carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortions.

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Ahlul Bayt News Agency -ABNA- Hojjatolislam Akhtari, who was speaking at the unveiling ceremony of the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly’s new digital products, pointed to the activities of the Assembly in recent years and said: “Now more than 350 million people around the world are benefiting from the teachings of the Ahlul Bayt (AS) and this is our biggest activity in the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly.”

Referring to the Ahlul Bayt News Agency (ABNA), he also said: “Lunching an accurate news agency for the Shiite Muslims around the world was a very important thing for us and now by ABNA we could inform people about what is really happen in Yemen, Bahrain and other countries.”

“In Mina tragedy we were among the first news agencies that covered the news, so we could bring more visitors to our website,” he said.

The Secretary General of the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly also pointed to the writing and translating of more than 1700 books and said: “For promoting teachings of the Ahlul Bayt (AS) we translate our books to more than 55 languages and now we are going to increase that to 60 languages.”

Akhtari also referred to the University of Ahlul Bayt as the Assembly’s important activity and said: “Till now more than three thousand Shiite scholars have graduated from the university in different countries and now they have reached a proper place among Muslim nations.”

“Now there is a good opportunity for promoting Shi’ism in Africa, Latin America and South America; in this case we need to produce applications and to be active in cyberspace,” he added.

At the end of his speech Akhtari also said: “Shia logic is the logic of wisdom; so we are ready to debate with the leaders of other religions in this field.”

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Iranian Intelligence Minister said on Mon. the Islamic Republic has so far held various sessions on pursuing the Mina tragedy during which the Ministry of Intelligence has become required to collect documentation to probe into the cause of the incident.

Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi made the remarks on Monday at a funeral service held in the southern city of Shiraz in Fars Province for a number of the Iranian pilgrims that were killed in the Mina tragedy near the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

He added the Intelligence Ministry has begun its work to determine whether the incident had been deliberate or not.

“The Mina incident is not an issue that only Iran is concerned with, but rather it is a key issue for the world of Islam and 22 mourning Islamic countries,” said Alavi, adding the tragedy has an ‘international dimension’ that Iran and other Islamic nations must work together to pursue.

“The vice president for legal affairs is also making arrangements to file a lawsuit with international legal entities on behalf of the bereaved families of the victims to urge proper action on the tragic event,” the intelligence minister said.

Alavi further criticized Saudi authorities’ incompetence and imprudence for failing to show a proper response to the Mina incident which had subsequently worsened the depth of the tragedy, saying if the Saudi government had cooperated with Muslim nations in tending to the injured and identifying the victims’ bodies, it could have lessened the extent of the tragedy and the Muslims’ outrage.

“The Leader’s strong stance in regard to the Mina incident was the turning point which forced Saudi officials to express their condolences to the Iranian nation,” said Alavi.

Last week, Iran’s Leader Ayat. Khameni said the country’s possible response to Saudi misconduct and disrespect toward Iranian pilgrims and victims will be “firm and severe.”

The human crush of September 24 in Mina, Saudi Arabia, during the Hajj pilgrimage rituals, claimed lives of about 4,700 people, including 464 Iranians, according to Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization.

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