IINA urged to highlight world Muslim causes

Minister of Culture and Information Abdul Aziz Khoja, who is also chairman of the Executive Council of the International Islamic News Agency (IINA), launched the new website of IINA at a ceremony held at his office in Jeddah on Monday.
The site is supplied by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). Modernizing of the site is part of an ongoing major facelift of IINA, a specialized media organ of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in order to make it play an effective role in bolstering Islamic unity and highlighting causes of Muslims worldwide.
Speaking on the occasion, Khoja praised the new website’s content and style, stressing that IINA should focus on highlighting contemporary issues of the Islamic world. “IINA must give prominent coverage to everything that concerns joint Islamic work through disseminating comprehensive news and reports about Muslims across the world,” he said.
Addressing the ceremony, Ali bin Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, IINA acting director general, lauded the support accorded by the minister of culture and information as well as SPA, represented by its Director General Abdullah Al-Hussein.
“This support, including the launch of the website, represents the new initiative to activate IINA as well as to restructure and develop it to become the strong media arm for the Islamic world and present a unified voice on the issues of the Islamic world and Muslim minorities in other countries,” he said.
Al-Ghamdi noted that the new website is being published in the Arabic, English and French language. Stories and reports from various parts of the Islamic world are being categorized under various titles and subtitles with a special focus on Muslim minorities, Palestine and Islamophobia. For example, the site contains classification of news under the title of OIC and subtitles of various OIC-affiliated bodies. “It also focuses with special stories on major Muslim occasions, such as Ramadan, Haj and Umrah, and conferences on the issues of Muslims across the world,” he said.
Al-Ghamdi was appointed acting director general of IINA in Dec. 2011, replacing Ali Erdem Kok of Turkey.
The Jeddah-based IINA was established in 1972 under a resolution of the Third Conference of Foreign Ministers from 57 OIC member states. Since then, there were several attempts to reactivate IINA in order to make it capable of fulfilling its objective of enhancing and preserving Islamic cultural heritage and strengthening ties among Muslims all over the world. The IINA restructuring is part of a 10-year action plan approved by the 3rd Extraordinary Islamic Summit held in Makkah in Dec. 2005. Saudi Arabia presented a paper at the meeting of the OIC information ministers held in Jeddah in 2006 to strengthen OIC media wings – IINA and Islamic States Broadcasting Organization (ISBO) – and the conference approved the proposal.
In April, OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu announced the pan-Islamic organization’s plan to establish a satellite channel and promote investment in the media to fight Islamophobia and enhance exchange of information among the member states. “We have a number of important proposals to strengthen Islamic media activities. They include the launch of an OIC satellite channel,” he told the 9th conference of information ministers from the Islamic world held in Libreville, capital of Gabon. There were also other proposals at the session, which included setting up a journalist union and establishing the OIC Broadcasting Regulatory Authorities Union to address issues of Muslims worldwide.