Thousands of moroccans demonstrate against Al Qaeda
Gateway Pundit is reporting that there were almost 150,000 moroccan demonstrating against Al Qaeda yesterday, which is holding 2 morrocans embassy workers hostage and are threatening to kill them. Thousands hold banners in Casablanca, southern Morocco, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2005, as they marched through the city on Sunday to protest al Qaida's decision to kill two Moroccan hostages in Iraq. Al Qaida has said it decided to kill the Moroccan embassy employees, Abderrahim Boualem and Abdelkrim al Mouhafidi because of Morocco's support for the US-backed Iraqi government. [...] Thousands marched through Morocco's biggest city on Sunday to protest Al-Qaeda's decision to kill two Moroccan hostages in Iraq. Holding banners and chanting "Muslims are brothers. A Muslim does not kill his brother" and "Yes to freedom, No to terrorism and barbarity," the protesters marched through Casablanca, a city of six million and Morocco's financial capital. [...] But the Moroccan Foreign Ministry said its embassy would not succumb to "blackmail," particularly "coming from a terrorist group which cannot claim to represent Iraq." It said Al-Qaeda "is attempting shamefully to justify (the killings) with so-called religious references and false political considerations." [...] Top Moroccan officials, ministers, pro-government and opposition party leaders and trade unions and rights groups, led the protest to put pressures on Al-Qaeda to free the two men. Some members of Islamist parties which back Iraqi insurgents fighting U.S.-led forces in Iraq also joined the march."All Moroccans are with Iraq, all Moroccans are innocent," the marchers chanted. Morocco's influential organization of Islamic scholars, known as the High Council of the Ulema and the Councils of Ulema in the Moroccan Kingdom, said Al-Qaeda members in Iraq will suffer the "horrors of hell" if they kill the Moroccan hostages and the victims will die as martyrs. It dismissed Al-Qaeda's argument that its verdict to kill the two embassy employees was "God's judgment." The tide may finally be shifting.
posted by The Sandmonkey @ 11/07/2005 03:31:00 AM
3 Comments:
This is the most hope-inspiring thing that I've read about in recent months regarding the threat of radicalization in Islam. I've heard people come out and say that Al Qaeda has "hijacked" Islam, but this is the first time I've heard about it happening in a forum of tens of thousands of Muslim demonstrators.
Morrocco has a long history of close ties with the US. This looks, however, like it's not just "pro-US propaganda/sentiment". What the United States is doing in Iraq can be criticized up and down, but I think it is important for the moderate voice of Arab Muslims to control the dialogue in the Middle East. That's the voice that says that an unjust occupation does not justify the killing of innocent people, Muslim or not, and that people who do such things do not have the support of the cultures that they claim to represent.
I hate to beat a dead horse, however, where is the US Media on this? Bush hater / Bush supporter, you have to wonder why some things just don't make the news?
No surprise here, the Moroccans despise Al Qaeda with a passion. Also no surprise, no coverage by the Terrorists' cheerleaders in the Press .
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