Press Release: Attack on Tunisia

We strongly condemn the heinous attacks on innocent people whether in France or Kuwait or Tunisia and urge the government to use all its resources to track the killers of innocent British nationals and bring them to justice.

We should all, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, stand up and say that these jihadists or Islamists are using the name of the religion of Islam and distorting its teachings to preach hatred. What they are saying is hate speech, as defined by the law of our country, and should be treated as such. Our brother and sister Muslims need to stand up and defend Islam, now, as they do when, for example, those despicable cartoons of our beloved prophet were published. If mosques remain silent at this time, then, other communities will be justified in thinking that Islam is indeed a violent religion. Failure of mosques to stand up and condemn these crimes would mean that they condone such actions and this makes them complicit.

Just as, in the 1930s, attempts to appease Hitler and the Nazis, despite the hatred they preached, failed, appeasement will not work now. I urge the government to scrutinise the syllabuses being taught in Islamic schools in the UK to ensure young children are not being brain washed into believing that Islam teaches intolerance and hatred of other communities. A better solution would be to abolish faith schools altogether, and replace them with secular schools, leaving religion to be taught outside the schools.

Shahid Aziz, President of the Ahmadiyya Association for the Propagation of Islam, said:

Islam teaches that unlawful killing of one-person amounts to the murder of the whole humanity. Those who commit such acts are thus no better than the Nazis who ran concentration camps and should be treated as such.

I share in the grief of my countrymen, especially those affected by the killings in Tunisia and I pray Allah gives them solace to bear their tragic loss. I wishe I could be of greater service to them at this time