REUTERS, Wednesday, January 09, 2002 03:56 PM ET
Rights Group Demands U.N. Probe 'Jihad-Islamism'
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A human rights group on Wednesday urged the United
Nations to appoint someone to investigate what it called "jihad violence" against
non-Muslims and moderate Muslims in several Asian, African and Middle Eastern
countries.
At a rally in cold wind and rain outside United Nations headquarters, speakers from
Afghanistan to Indonesia to Sudan cited the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States by
suspected Islamic militants as even more reason for the world to pay attention to
allegations of persecution in majority-Muslim countries.
"Since 1996 I have basically worn all my shoes in the hallways of the United Nations
bringing attention to the misery and massacre of my people ... nobody listened until
September 11th," said Afghan anthropologist Zeiba Shorish-Shamley, referring to the
year the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan and imposes strict Islamic rule.
Speakers from Nigeria, Egypt, Indonesia and Sudan alleged persecution of Christians
in their countries. Other nations represented at the demonstration were Pakistan,
India and Bangladesh.
"They may be called victims, but that doesn't mean that they have surrendered," said
Keith Roderick, secretary-general of Macomb, Illinois-based The Coalition for the
Defense of Human Rights. "Human dignity is too deeply rooted in the soul to be
reached even by the most vile enemies of freedom."
In a letter delivered at the U.N. gates to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the group
demanded that he appoint a special rapporteur to examine "the status and conditions
of non-Muslim minorities, women, and humanist, moderate Muslims in states ruled by
Islamic majorities."
The letter said "radical Jihad-Islamism" was an ideology waging "terrorist war
worldwide" seeking to establish "religious apartheid" by dividing people into believers
and non-believers. It accused Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Sudan of
subjugating "infidels."
During the rally, in a choreographed act of civil disobedience, three people who joined
the protest were arrested by New York police officers at the U.N. gates. They included
psychologist Roy Vogel, rights activist Maria Sliwa and her brother, Curtis Sliwa, best
known as leader of New York's red-jacketed, red-bereted Guardian Angels civilian
anti-crime patrol.
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