JEDDAH, 16 September — As the international community struggles to cope with the aftermath of Tuesday’s deadly attacks on the United States for which Muslims have already been blamed, a conference on Muslim minorities that just ended in Europe could not have been better timed, analysts said yesterday.
The conference, hosted by the Jeddah-based Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, concluded on Friday after discussing what OIC officials said appropriate solutions to problems facing Muslim minorities in noon-member countries.
According to OIC statistics, there are some 500 million Muslims living as minority groups in the world with the majority found in the Asian and African continents.
The problems cited by the OIC range from poverty, ignorance and the spread of disease in the poorer parts of the world to racial and religious bigotry including attempts to obliterate Muslim identity in other areas. The attacks on the US could further compound the problems of these communities, the analysts said.
The treatment of Muslims in countries like Bulgaria and other former communist states, where forced assimilation and other types of repression were practiced, has since changed to one of recognition and tolerance. Many now fear the terrifying television pictures that keep coming from New York and Washington may further undermine the status of Muslim minorities.
Addressing the conference, which opened amid strict security measures and was attended by Bulgarian government officials and Muslim scholars from different parts of the world, OIC Secretary-General Abdelouhed Belkaziz renewed condemnation of the attacks in New York and Washington.
He also said that the organization would work closely with the United Nations and other world bodies to lay down “acceptable basis” that would ensure the protection of minority rights worldwide.
“The OIC was the first (international body) to initiate dialogue among civilizations and to urge tolerance and accommodation of differing viewpoints...,” he said.
The conference called for correcting the distorted image about Islam and Muslims being portrayed in textbooks in many countries and for fair and objective media coverage.
Acts of violence against Muslims in the US in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have prompted Western leaders to caution against such behavior. One American lawmaker has proposed a resolution condemning anti-Muslim violence and called for the protection of civil rights of all Americans.
Islamic religious and cultural centers in the US where the Muslims number around six million have been targeted.
In Britain, which is home to two million followers of the faith, Muslims have been facing increased threats and many are forced to remain indoors. Women wearing headscarves have been abused, mosques vandalized and threatened with bomb attacks.
The OIC conference on minorities was proposed by Muslim foreign ministers, who in 1996 decided to form a panel of experts to address the problems facing Muslim minorities worldwide.
