By IINA,
Kuala Lumpur : The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu urged yesterday Western governments to hit out more strongly against acts that are offensive to Islam. Addressing the Third International Conference on the Muslim World and the West, which kicked off here yesterday, the OIC Chief warned there seemed to be a growing “campaign of hate and discrimination” against Muslims by a small number of individuals and organizations.
Prof. Ihsanoglu praised Western nations for criticizing acts such as the recent release of an anti-Quran film by a Dutch lawmaker, but said more should have been done. “Mere condemnation or distancing from the acts of the perpetrators of Islamophobia will not resolve the issue, as long as they remain free to carry on with their campaign of incitement and provocation on the plea of freedom of expression,” the Associated Press quoted him as saying. Earlier this year, the release of the film “Fitna” by Dutch politician Geert Wilders sparked protests by Muslims for showing images of terror attacks interspersed with text from the Qur’an.
Prof. Ihsanoglu also urged the media to reject “proponents of hatred and intolerance totally,” citing other incidents such as the republishing in Denmark of cartoons considered an insult by Muslims. “It requires a strong and determined collective political will to address the challenge,” he said adding “it is now high time for concrete actions to stem the rot before it aggravates (the situation) any further.” The two-day conference entitled “Muslim World and The West: Bridging the Gap”, is the third in the series organized by Malaysia, and is jointly hosted by the Foreign Ministry, Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations and the Cordoba Initiative.
The conference aimed to define and agree on what constitutes the gap between the Muslim World and The West. There aretwo main sessions – a high-level plenary session and four concurrent strategy sessions, which are expected to propose practical solutions and specific projects to narrow the gap. About 50 local and foreign experts and representatives from a cross-section of the civil society, government, non-governmental organizations and think-tanks are participating in the strategy sessions.