By IRNA,
London : Over a dozen British Muslim organisations and Islamic Centres have joined together to condemn the atrocities being committed against the Bahraini people by its regime and warned about attempts to falsify the uprisings as being sectarian.
“As Muslims in keeping with our duty to aid the oppressed whoever they may be, we the undersigned condemn the atrocities being committed against the Bahraini people by its regime as crimes against the rights enjoyed by all men and women regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or any other characteristic,” they said in a joint statement.
“We see no sectarianism in the legitimate demands of the Bahraini people. The regime has shown no preference of religious affiliation in its brutal suppression of its people over the weeks,” the statement said, according to a copy obtained by IRNA.
“We believe that those that are being arrested, murdered and brutalised by security forces and foreign armies are making these sacrifices so that Bahrain may attain a just political system; where Muslims – whether Shia, Sunni or of any other affiliation – are able to enjoy the God-given rights of all human-beings,” it said.
Co-signatures included the Muslim Association of Britain, International Muslim Women’s Union, Islamic Forum of Europe and the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
IHRC chair Massoud Shadjareh said that British Muslims rejected the conscious effort being made by politicians, pundits and the Western media to “dislocate the Bahraini struggle for freedom from oppression from its Arab counterparts in Libya, Yemen, Egypt and elsewhere”.
“The ease with which the dictators of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have influenced Western politicians and ‘respectable’ media outlets to imagine that they possess a right to openly commit atrocities under the pretence of sectarianism is shocking,” Shadjareh said.
In their statement, he said that British Muslims were refusing to be complicit and have taken a crucial step by declaring that it is “immoral to satisfy the Saudi and Bahraini regimes’ demands that the struggle be viewed as motivated by sectarianism, rather than the common dissatisfaction of Muslims with their tyrannical regimes across the Arab world.”
The IHCR urged Western politicians and media outlets to !immediately cease being complicit in the campaign of violence against the Bahraini people.
The joint statement said that the non-sectarian nature of the uprising was
“echoed in the chants of the people of Bahrain that they demonstrate as neither Shia nor Sunni, but as Bahrainis” and that it was the duty of Muslims and all people to “support the struggle of the Bahraini people against their oppressive regime.”
“It is also the duty of the King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, Prime-Minister Khalifa ibn Salman al-Khalifa, and the regime as a whole to listen to the cries of the people; cease immediately their campaign of violent suppression; and allow the Bahrainis to decide their own future,” it said.