OIC to eye movie 'Innocence of Muslims'

"nnocence of Muslims," a controversial film which has sparked violent protests across the Middle East over the past ten days due to its anti-Islamic content, will be discussed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) members next week in New York, OIC Secreatary-General accounced on Tuesday Today`s Zaman reported

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin ?hsano?lu announced on Tuesday at a press conference at the headquarters of the OIC General Secretariat in Jeddah that he the efforts he made over the past few days resulted in the success of the General Secretariat in putting the issue of the indecent film targeting the character of Prophet Muhammad on top of the agenda of the annual coordination meeting of OIC members which will is slated for next week.

At a press conference at the headquarters of the OIC General Secretariat in Jeddah, ?hsanoglu said that the planned meeting will discuss all possible initiatives to reach an action plan to address the escalating wave of incitement against Muslims after the release of the trailer for the film in question which ridiculed Prophet Muhammad.

He stated that he initiated an intensive diplomatic move and made high-level contacts to formulate an international unified response. He also noted that he sent a letter to US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and made contacts with Dr. Nabil Elaraby, Secretary General of the League of Arab States and Catherine Ashton, the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the European Union, in order to explore ways that prevent repetition of such an act which aimed at incitements that may result in violence.

"Some OIC member states contacted us proposing some initiatives," but I urged all the 57 member states to speak with a strong and unified voice on this very important matter," he said.

The Secretary-general began the press conference by renewing OIC's condemnation of this film in the strongest possible terms and also reiterated strong condemnation of the tragic killing of US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens along with three other US officials during an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

He added that resort to violence leads to loss of life and cannot be tolerated on any grounds.

He underlined that the international community needs to come up with a unified action with regard to implementation of international law, which warns clearly against any advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, aggression or violence.

?hsano?lu also pointed to the first paragraph of the Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which prohibits by law any propaganda for war, while the second paragraph of the same article prohibits by law any advocacy for national, racial or religious hatred.


/Trend/