May 11th, 2016

A spate of bombings rocked Baghdad today, killing at least 90, with the ISIS terror group claiming responsibility for the carnage in all three areas of Baghdad. In the Kadhimia district, a car bombing killed at least 20 and wounded 37, in western part of Baghdad, another bomb blast killed all east 10 and wounded 25 and yet another car bomb killed at least 60 people and wounding 60 others, in Sadr City, an eastern Baghdad suburb almost entirely occupied by Shia Muslims. The casualties, as always, are the innocent men women and children.

The savagery of the perpetrators has brought terror the world over.  The genesis of this assemblage of evil men, known as ISIS, are branded as “Takfiris”, whose cowardly acts are a symptom of an ideology that began many decades ago, with sanctioning violence against Shia Muslims and subsequently other groups, who were deemed by them to have deviated from Islam.   Sadly, this menace of violence has engulfed entire humanity.

Today Syria has become a global battleground for International and Regional Powers, each jostling for their national interests. At their behest, their proxies, are fighting and the casualties are innocent men women and children who have lost limb, life and land . In Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s back yard, the fight is between the opposition and the government. Once again proxies are at play and the innocent suffer.

The world watches and the powers that be are complicit, unwilling, uncaring or impotent to stop the mass murders in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and other parts of the Muslim world. These atrocities have been going on unchecked across many other nations continue unabated. Millions are dead, injured, or have become refugees, some within the country, others outside it. We ask that when our fellow beings, who are either our brethren in faith or equals in creation, are being so butchered to death or driven to desperation to leave their ancestral homelands: where is the voice of conscience? Are these people not human too? Don’t they deserve to live on God’ s earth in peace and safety?

The Shia Muslim Council’s position has been unswerving that these barbaric acts of mass murder have no sanction in the religion of Islam, which forbids terrorism and the targeting of innocent people. The Shia Muslim Council of Southern California unequivocally condemns all parties responsible for the atrocities perpetrated with such wickedness. Every innocent life lost is a tragedy – for a life to be taken through violence and terror is an even greater tragedy.

Conscience, it is said, is the voice of the Self which says ‘yes or ‘no’ when you are involved in a moral struggle. It raises the voice of protest whenever anything is thought of or done contrary to the very principle of justice. Conscience is a form of truth. It is a guiding voice from within. We appeal to the collective conscience of all upstanding human beings to raise the voice of protest and send a clear message to their leaders to work to bring an end to this wanton killing, maiming and displacing our fellow human beings.
Jazakum Allahu Khayran,
Shia Muslim Council of Southern California