News
Friday, March 14, 2008
OIC leaders angered at West’s Islamophobia
DAKAR: The leaders of the world’s Muslim states on Thursday criticised a rising wave of “Islamophobia” in the West and pledged to combat Islamic extremism. Heads of state of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) met in Senegal for talks on making the 57-nation body more effective in combating poverty in Muslim states in Africa and Asia. But the talks were overshadowed by hostilities between Chad and Sudan. In an embarrassment for Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who billed the summit as a chance for a definitive peace deal between the two neighbours, Chad accused Sudan of launching a rebel attack on its territory. Sudan called this “nonsense”. Chad President Idriss Deby Itno went into talks with Sudan’s Omar Al Beshir and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hours after Chad made the accusations. Efforts to revamp the OIC’s unwieldy 40-article charter also ran into problems after foreign ministers broke off their discussions without agreement on Wednesday. But delegates were unanimous in voicing fury at Israeli military strikes against Palestinian territories. “In our relations with the Western world, we are going through difficult times,” said OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. “Should freedom of expression mean freedom to blaspheme? There is no such thing as limitless freedom,” Wade said of blasphemous caricatures published in the European press. OIC officials hope revamping the body’s charter can speed decision-making. A key reform would allow decisions to be taken by a two-thirds majority, instead of by unanimity. Some members are pushing to make OIC membership conditional on a state having a “majority” Muslim population. Pakistan was also insisting the new charter should make potential members resolve their conflicts with existing members before being allowed to join – reflecting its long-running dispute with neighbour India over the Kashmir region. agencies
Courtesy Daily Times