Iranian Muslim intellectuals protest

http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/07/iranian-muslim-intellectuals-protest.html
Muslim intellectuals protest to EU follows my commentary;

Three things jump from this piece;

i) That it is the voice of the intellectuals from Iran and was in a way endorsed by the government of Iran to have delivered by the Tehran Embassy. I hope the Iranian government is reflective of her people, as of now, it is not the case. It sounds very much like our administration; it does not reflect the sentiments of an overwhelming majority of Americans.

ii) “Muslims no longer expect pluralism from you but just some politeness and justice,” the statement explains. I do hope we can expect Pluralism from the Iranian government. The rumors about mistreatment of Jews, Sufis and Bahai’s turned out to be a hoax, as we have worked on it two years ago. I am not sure if the Government of Iran practices Pluralism, certainly the intellectuals do, and no matter what country they live.

iii) The Iranian government needs to back off from denying Holocaust, it certainly can search for the answers but not hurt the sentiments of people who are hurt, whose faith in mankind was tarnished, and who stood hopelessly to be killed.

Much of the ire Iran has raised against herself comes from its administration and not her people. Ahmedinejad's words are cause of much of the conflict; he is bent on winning battles of wits with his partner Bush in dumbness, but forgets about losing the goodwill of the people around the globe. The hawks in Israel like Olmert are simply mirroring this Hawk Ahmedinejad.

All these individual hawks must be challenged into a dialogue, if they refuse, then at least asked to fight a hand to hand wrestling in an arena and leave the rest of the world in peace.

Mike Ghouse
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Muslim intellectuals protest to EU
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=173908

TEHRAN – Hundreds of Muslim intellectuals released a statement here on Thursday condemning recent insults to Muslims and holy prophet by some western figures and governments.

This statement was delivered to the French government which holds the rotating presidency of the EU council by Iranian embassy in France.

The statement - signed by hundreds of poets, academics, intellectuals, writers, and journalists - calls on the European countries to quit their anti-Islamic efforts.

“This culture of violence and vindictive procedures which are often covered under the ‘liberty of speech’, not only targets the holy prophet but also other divine characters like Christ, Mary, Moses and Abraham.” the statement reads.

Denouncing German foreign minister’s support for these insults, the statement added, “The European Union’s support to Selman Rushdie and recent stupid caricatures and turning ‘freedom of speech’ into ‘freedom of insult’ is nothing but aggression and cultural terrorism.”

“Muslims no longer expect pluralism from you but just some politeness and justice,” the statement explains.

Elsewhere the statement reads, “The secular Europe should note it cannot compensate its Christian violence of the past centuries by secular and modern violence and in a prejudiced manner against Islam which played no role in Europe’s violence.”

In recent years there has been a growing wave of insults against the Holy Prophet and Muslims in some western countries like Denmark. Germany’s foreign minister called other nations to do the same.