‘Unite to fight terror’

FNC Speaker urges solidarity to battle extremist influence

ABU DHABI // Terrorism is not unique to any religion, nationality, region or culture and all must unite to fight its influence, the Speaker of the Federal National Council said yesterday. Mohammed Al Murr was addressing the opening session of a two-day meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s executive committee. He said that the UAE was committed to fighting all sources of terrorism and “deemed it necessary to come up with a collective stance to face these challenges and to have a collective voice for Muslim peoples”.

The UAE’s Parliamentary Division recognised the dangers extremism posed to Islam’s genuine values, he said, and “the need to achieve further solidarity and cooperation on fighting terrorist threats”.

The meeting will discuss a charter to combat extremism and terrorism, which was initially proposed by the UAE Parliamentary Division led by Mr Al Murr. The proposal was unanimously approved by the OIC member states this year at a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey.

No single region or state could counter the threat of terrorism alone, Mr Al Murr said. He said the adoption of a charter by an Islamic organisation would help to counter extremist ideologies that threaten the stability of Muslim countries. It would promote proper Islamic ideals while denouncing extremism.

The draft charter lists a broad range of acts as terrorist crimes.

They include violence and wrongful killing, abuse of human dignity, endangering the security of societies, jeopardising basic freedoms, forcibly displacing people, injuring or terrorising, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The draft states that the OIC denounces and rejects all entities, groups, organisations, parties and individuals committing these terrorist crimes, which have no link to Islam.

This latest gathering comes after the OIC’s meeting with the African Union in Istanbul last week. The assembly in Turkey resulted in the two groups signing an agreement to support and strengthen their partnership in countering terrorism and violent extremism in Africa.

The agreement was finalised at the Summit for Peace, which was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli.