JEDDAH: Muslim nations on Friday called for tough international action to combat Islamophobia following the terror attack on two New Zealand mosques. The executive committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), meeting in Istanbul, expressed its outrage at last week’s Christchurch massacre, and deep concern over the resurgence of racist movements and terrorist activities around the world.
Foreign ministers attending the emergency session, issued a raft of demands aimed at tackling the scourge of hate-related violence toward Muslims and other minority groups. They said raids on mosques and the killing of Muslims highlighted the “brutal and inhumane consequences” of hatred of Islam.
Members called on all governments to review their legal frameworks regarding terrorism and urged the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights to establish an observatory to monitor extremist acts against Muslims.
The OIC committee also suggested that the UN and other regional and international organizations should declare March 15 (the day of the Christchurch attack) an international day of solidarity against Islamophobia.
It said the UN should convene a session of its General Assembly to debate the issue of racism and appoint a special representative on combating Islamophobia. The UN was also requested to expand the scope of its existing sanctions on terror groups to cover individuals and entities associated with extremist ethnic organizations.
Fifty worshippers died and many others were seriously injured during last Friday’s shootings at the Al-Noor and Linwood mosques in New Zealand’s South Island city.
The OIC reiterated that terrorism had no religion or justification and was a crime regardless of when, where or against who it was committed.
In its final communique, the OIC committee said a recent global rise in terrorist activities was hampering international efforts to promote peace and harmony between nations.
Adhering to international policies on safeguarding the rights, dignity, religious and cultural identity of Muslim communities and minorities in non-member states was key to tackling the issue, the ministers declared.
They noted resolutions of previous Islamic summit conferences and meetings which expressed concerns over attacks on mosques and other Muslim properties.
The OIC foreign ministers thanked the government of New Zealand for its unequivocal condemnation of the terrorist attacks and the firm stance of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and offered their full support to a comprehensive and transparent investigation into the outrage.
The committee also extended its sincere condolences to the families of the victims.
The meeting stressed the need for the OIC to maintain close contacts with UN and EU governments of countries with Muslim populations and minorities to identify ways of promoting cultural harmony, understanding, respect, and tolerance.
Communicating with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to remove and prohibit content inciting violence and hatred toward Muslims was also important, the OIC ministers stated.
Members requested the OIC Contact Group on Peace and Dialogue to prioritize efforts to combat religious discrimination, Islamophobia, intolerance, and hatred against Muslims and to hold regular interfaith meetings. They added that all the necessary human and financial resources should be given to the OIC’s work in communicating with centers around the world concerned with Islamophobia.
Meanwhile Ridwaan Jadwat, Australia’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said: “Australians share their deepest sympathies with those affected by the devastating terrorist attack by a right-wing extremist in Christchurch and share the grief of New Zealanders and Muslim communities the world over.
“The day after the attack, the prime minister and foreign minister reached out to the Muslim community to convey deep condolences and show solidarity, visiting a mosque and meeting Muslim leaders including the grand mufti and the Australian National Imams Council.
“We will always protect and defend our Muslim community in Australia and our people’s right to practice peacefully their religion without fear. Everyone has a right to feel safe in their places of worship.”
The envoy said his government was extending community safety grants to protect religious schools, places of worship and assembly.
“This is the time for unity and inclusion. We must all work together against extremism and take care to ensure our public debates about this horrific incident do not encourage the very divisions between faiths and cultures that extremists seek to create.”
Muslim nations urge for measures against Islamophobia
Muslim nations urge for measures against Islamophobia
- The OIC said attacks against mosques and murders of Muslims showed the "brutal, inhumane and horrific outcomes" of hatred of Islam
- Erdogan also said far-right neo-nazi groups should be treated as terrorists in the same way as Daesh
Iran threatens to annihilate Israel should it launch a major attack
- Explosions were heard over Iran’s Isfahan city Friday in possible Israeli attack
- But Tehran played down the incident and said it had no plans for a retaliation
DUBAI: An Israeli attack on Iranian territory could radically change dynamics and result in there being nothing left of the "Zionist regime", Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi was quoted as saying on Tuesday by the official IRNA news agency.
Raisi began a three day visit to Pakistan on Monday and has vowed to boost trade between the neighbouring nations to $10 billion a year.
The two Muslim neighbours are seeking to mend ties after unprecedented tit-for-tat military strikes this year.
On Friday, explosions were heard over the Iranian city of Isfahan in what sources said was an Israeli attack, but Tehran played down the incident and said it had no plans for retaliation.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel on April 13 in what it said was retaliation for Israel's suspected deadly strike on its embassy compound in Damascus on April 1, but almost all were shot down.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will honourably continue to support the Palestinian resistance," Raisi added in the speech in Lahore.
Norway calls on donors to resume funding to Palestinian UNRWA agency
- Norway, also a major donor to the organization, argued that funding cuts put the population of Gaza at risk
- “I would now like to call on countries that have still frozen their contributions to UNRWA to resume funding,” Norway’s foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said
OSLO: Norway called on international donors on Tuesday to resume payments to the UN agency for Palestinians refugees (UNRWA) after a report found Israel had yet to provide evidence that some UNRWA staff were linked to terrorist groups.
The United States, Britain and others earlier this year paused payments to UNRWA following Israel’s claims, while Norway, also a major donor to the organization, argued that funding cuts put the population of Gaza at risk.
A review of the agency’s neutrality led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna on Monday concluded Israel had yet to back up its accusations that hundreds of UNRWA staff were operatives in Gaza terrorist groups.
“I would now like to call on countries that have still frozen their contributions to UNRWA to resume funding,” Norway’s foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement.
A separate investigation by internal UN investigators is looking into Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA staff took part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks which triggered the Gaza war.
“Norway has emphasized that it is unacceptable to punish an entire organization, with 30,000 employees, and all Palestine refugees for the alleged misdeeds of a small number of the organization’s employees,” Barth Eide said.
While 10 countries have since ended their suspensions, the United States, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Lithuania have not. A UN spokesperson on Monday said UNRWA currently had enough funding to pay for operations until June.
Jordan thwarts attempt to smuggle 73,500 amphetamine pills at Syrian border
- Agents discovered 35,000 additional Captagon pills hidden aboard a passenger bus also arriving from Syria
AMMAN: The Jordan Customs Department said on Tuesday that it thwarted, in collaboration with security agencies and anti-narcotics forces, two recent smuggling attempts involving 73,500 Captagon pills at the Jaber border crossing.
In the first incident, JCD personnel at the border crossing intercepted an attempt to smuggle 38,500 Captagon pills, Jordan News Agency reported.
The drugs were found concealed on a passenger arriving from Syria. The suspect was subjected to an intensive search, during which the hidden narcotics were discovered.
In a second incident at the same border crossing, agents discovered 35,000 additional Captagon pills hidden aboard a passenger bus also arriving from Syria. The vehicle underwent a thorough search, leading to the seizure of the concealed drugs.
The JCD said that its agents continue to actively work across all Jordanian border customs centers, in cooperation with national security agencies, to prevent the smuggling of narcotics into the country.
The initiative is part of ongoing efforts to safeguard Jordanian citizens and the economy from the impacts of illegal drug trade, it said.
War-torn Syria has become the region’s main site for a multi-billion-dollar drug trade, with Jordan being a key transit route to Gulf states for the amphetamine known as Captagon.
Most of the world’s Captagon is made in Syria.
Palestinian film director aims for ‘different image’ of Gaza
- Against the backdrop of the war in the Gaza Strip, the festival in southern Egypt decided to screen six Palestinian short films in the competition
- This was despite many voices in the Arab world calling for the suspension of all artistic and cultural activities in solidarity with Palestinians
ASWAN, Egypt: Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi wants to “export a different cinematic image of Gaza,” now ravaged by war, as he presides over the jury at the eighth Aswan International Women Film Festival themed on “resistance cinema.”
Against the backdrop of the war in the Gaza Strip, the festival in southern Egypt decided to screen six Palestinian short films in the competition, which brings together filmmakers from across the region.
This was despite many voices in the Arab world calling for the suspension of all artistic and cultural activities in solidarity with Palestinians.
Masharawi is known internationally for being the first Palestinian director to be in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival when his film “Haifa” was included in 1996.
Born in the Gaza Strip to refugees from the port city of Jaffa, the director now lives in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
He said he “does not consider art and cinema as purely entertainment.”
“If film festivals do not play their role when major disasters occur, as with what is currently happening in Palestine, then why do they exist?” he asked.
Among the six Palestinian films included at Aswan is the 14-minute documentary film “Threads of Silk” by director Walaa Saadah, who was killed last month in the war. The film looks at the meanings of the embroidery on the Palestinian “thawb” robe.
Another is the five-minute film “I am from Palestine” by the director Iman Al-Dhawahari, about a Palestinian-American girl in the United States who is shocked at school to see a map of the world without her country.
The 16-minute documentary film “A Cut Off Future” from director Alia Ardoghli discusses the daily experiences of 27 girls between the ages of 11 and 17 in the shadow of the Israeli occupation.
In his newest film, for which work is ongoing, Masharawi said he wanted to expose what he called “the lie of self-defense.”
“The occupation (Israel) blew up the studio of an artist in Gaza with paintings and statues. Where is self-defense when one kills artists and intellectuals while calling them terrorists?” the 62-year-old told AFP.
The conflict in Gaza erupted with the unprecedented October 7 Hamas attack on Israel which resulted in the death of at least 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
In retaliation, Israel launched a bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza aimed at destroying Hamas that has killed at least 34,183 people, the majority women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Two months after the beginning of the war, Masharawi began a new project: a support fund for cinema in the besieged coastal strip.
The initiative “Films from Distance Zero” supports Gazan filmmakers living “under the bombing or becoming refugees” to produce their films.
Female filmmakers are active in the project, about whom Masharawi said, “always in the most difficult moments, we find the Palestinian woman on the front line.”
Around 2.4 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a blockade since Hamas came to power in 2007.
Theatres in Gaza closed at the end of the 1980s during the Palestinian uprising against Israel known as the First Intifada, but reopened after the creation of the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s.
Hamas control changed all that, with the political Islamist movement considering film contrary to the values of Islam.
Nevertheless, last year an open-air film festival took place, “taking into account the customs and traditions of the territory,” a Hamas official said at the time.
For Masharawi, now more than ever, it is necessary to support cinema and have “a different cinematic image of Gaza” reach the world to “make the truth prevail in the face of the lies of the Israeli occupation.”
At the heart of Masharawi’s work is identity. “It is difficult (for Israel) to occupy our memories, our identities, our music, our history and our culture,” he said.
Israel “is wasting a lot of time on a project doomed to failure and which will kill many of us,” he said, referring to the war in Gaza.
Masharawi said he thought the solidarity of the Arab public with the Palestinian people, “and I mean the people and not their leaderships,” might come “from their powerlessness and the restrictions of their (government) systems.”
He added, “I used to dream that the Arab governments would be like their people, but I say it clearly: this has not happened, even after we have come close to 200 days of war.”
Egypt’s foreign minister holds talks with director general of migration organization
- Parties look at ways to support the Loss and Damage Fund
- Sameh Shoukry affirmed Egypt’s backing to adopt a comprehensive approach to migration governance
CAIRO: Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry held talks with the Director General of the International Organization for Migration Amy Pope during the UN official’s visit.
Shoukry expressed his appreciation of the organization’s cooperation, and spoke of aims to further relations to ensure comprehensive management of migration in a manner that contributed to achieving sustainable development in accordance with the principles and goals enshrined in the Global Compact for Migration. This stressed the importance of crystallizing the organization’s action priorities in consultation with developing countries’ governments.
He affirmed Egypt’s backing to adopt a comprehensive approach to migration governance so that it was not limited to security aspects only, but also took into account the development aspects associated with them, while addressing the root causes that lead to illegal immigration.
The minister also praised existing cooperation with the IOM in promoting ways of legal labor mobility and bridging the existing gaps in labor markets, thus achieving the interests of origin and destination states and migrants alike.
Shoukry noted that Egypt was facing increasing flows of migrants forced to flee their countries in pursuit of stability as a result of conflicts, economic reasons, or the repercussions of climate change, which had been clearly reflected in the sharp increase in the numbers of immigrants to Egypt.
He said that the support that Egypt receives from the international community was not commensurate with the burdens it bears to provide a decent life for those arriving, especially since the phenomenon had coincided with a period in which the Egyptian economy had suffered from the consequences of global crises, which had necessitated the organization to play its role in providing necessary support.
Pope thanked Egypt for its fruitful cooperation on issues involving the impact of climate change on migration, especially during Egypt’s presidency of COP27.
The parties also looked at ways to support and operationalize the Loss and Damage Fund and its important role in enhancing the ability of states to review the devastating effects of climate change and the impact on migration flows. They also spoke of cooperation between Egypt and the IOM in Africa.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid said the meeting also looked at developments taking place in the region, with Shoukry and Pope discussing the situation in Gaza, and providing humanitarian aid and safe havens to shelter the displaced.
In connection with developments in Sudan, Pope spoke of her appreciation of Egypt’s reception of a large number of displaced Sudanese nationals since the beginning of the crisis, as well as the Egyptian authorities’ role in providing support to those fleeing the conflict, and meeting their needs.
The UN official expressed the IOM’s readiness to provide support for Egypt in order to enhance its ability to care for Sudanese refugees, in cooperation with the relevant ministries, noting that the organization attached importance to Sudan for fear of it turning into a forgotten crisis.
