Slaughter at Charlie Hebdo

Although there have been no immediate claims of responsibility for the barbaric slaughter of twelve persons at the newspaper office of Charlie Hebdo (Boston Globe, 1,7,2015) three suspects have been identified with possible links to Al Qaida or Isis.

Irrespective of who the terrorists represent, the Muslim community of New England condemns the act as totally antithetical to the values of Islam. It repudiates the claims of Muslim heretics who seek justification for their actions as a response to the malfeasance (whether real or imagined) unleashed by the so-called West against the Muslim world. Notwithstanding that such a litany may include: a provocative humiliation (The Rushdie affair, the Mohammed cartoon caper, the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal); the exploitation of Muslim resources, occupation of their lands, or propping up of subservient dictators; the permissive extermination of Muslims in Bosnia, Chechnya and Kosovo; the unending ‘disclosures’ exposed in the endless so-called ‘war-on-terror ‘, or the status of a permanent ‘second class citizen’ in the new homeland, Islam does not permit vicarious retribution. In joining the near universal Muslim denunciations of all such atrocities by both Al-Qaida and Isis, the Islamic Council of New England which represents over twenty Islamic Centers in the region, extends its deepest condolences to the families of those affected by this terrible tragedy.

Humayun Kabeer                                                                                   Abdul Cader Asmal                                                                                                                                                                                                               President                                                                                                Co-chairman of Communications

Islamic Council of New England