Statement from the Muslim Council of Britain on Recent Terrorism

Muslim Council of Britain

Posted Jul 4, 2007      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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Statement from the Muslim Council of Britain on Recent Terrorism

    The events of the past few days have been very disturbing and challenging ones for all of us. At the very outset we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all the police officers and security experts who were tasked with removing the threat from the explosive devices in London and Glasgow.

It looks sadly as if the terror threat currently facing our country will be with us for some time to come. So let us be absolutely clear about this: those who seek to deliberately kill or maim innocent people are the enemies of all of us. There is no cause whatsoever that could possibly justify such barbarity. Those who engage in such murderous actions and those that provide support for them are the enemies of all, Muslims and non-Muslims, and they stand against our shared values in the UK.

The police and security services have the enormous responsibility for trying to ensure the safety of all Britons. As such they deserve the fullest support and cooperation from each and every sector of our society, including all Muslims.

With this in mind, the Muslim Council of Britain will, this coming Saturday, be convening a meeting at the Islamic Cultural Centre in London of key Imams and leading community activists from across the country. At Saturday’s meeting we hope to discuss how we can work better with other partners, including the police, to try to undermine and defeat the terrorists who seek to attack us. It is our Islamic duty not only to utterly and totally condemn such evil actions, but to provide all the necessary support to prevent such atrocities from taking place.

We would take this opportunity to commend the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for the calm and reassuring tone of their responses to the recent attacks in which they made clear that it was unacceptable to hold any one faith group or community as being somehow collectively responsible for the actions of a few. We also appreciate the stance taken by the Scottish first Minister Alex Salmond, who re-assured the Muslim community in Scotland in unequivocal terms when he visited Glasgow Central Mosque recently.

It cannot be stressed enough that terrorists actively seek to divide us and to undermine our collective strength. To be successful in our collective effort to deal with the threats of terror it is imperative that we all work together. We need to have confidence and mutual trust in each other. The challenges facing us as a nation require us to work together for the joint benefit of all.

Thank you.

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari
Secretary General
The Muslim Council of Britain http://www.mcb.org.uk/media/presstext.php?ann_id=262

   

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