UN 'must challenge bigots insulting religion'

Manama: The United Nations must challenge all those who attack Islam or other divine religions in the name of freedom of expression, Bahrainis and expatriates yesterday said as they demonstrated in more than ten locations throughout the kingdom.

"The international community readily takes a stance when someone denies the Holocaust or claims that it has been exaggerated. It should do the same thing whenever bigots hurt the sensitivity of millions of people by attacking the core of their beliefs," Shaikh Fareed Abdul Hadi yesterday told people as they prepared to join a rally.

"We do uphold the freedom of expression, but when it is targeting a divine religion, it is no longer freedom, but insensitive abuse at its best and outright vilification at its worst," he said.

Abdul Hadi, who also teaches at the University of Bahrain, said that people could criticise the Prophet or any religious icon through argumentation or in a debate.

"However, when it is derision of the Prophet and a labelling of Muslims as terrorists, the red lines have been crossed and there has to be an answer from the offended people," he said.

During the demonstrations, Sunnis and Shiites joined forces in the rallies co-organised throughout Bahrain to convey the message that they put aside their differences to demand respect of their religion and an end to transgression of its sensitivities.

The protestors, led by MPs, politicians and religious figures, shouted slogans against "the aggressive campaign waged against Islam and its Prophet by Denmark and other Western countries" and wanted the Danish authorities to apologise for the denigration and insults of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and Muslims.

They also demanded "genuine diplomatic and parliamentary action to convey the feelings of Muslims in Bahrain and elsewhere" and to sustain the boycott of Danish products.

The cartoons were published last September by the Danish mass-circulation daily Jyllands-Posten as part of a tongue-in-cheek contest, after a local author publicly complained that he could not find an illustration for his biography of the Prophet Mohammad.