Leaders of Muslim organisations in Leicester gathered with different faith groups and Leicestershire Police to show solidarity against the Paris attacks that happened on Friday 13th of November, strongly condemning them, and labeling modern terrorism as a high-jack on their peaceful religion.
People of all faith gathered to remember the victims and their families. Serious issues were highlighted, one of them being that the entire Muslim community is targeted when terrorist attacks happen.
Chief Constable Simon Cole attended, and he told us: “I’ve seen terrorists of every race, colour, creed, faith in my time. We need to work with communities, because it is communities that defeat terrorism, that piece of information, communities know the people who may be at risk, we can help them safeguard those people. So it’s really important to be here today, to join in the act of worship, just as I would worship with other faiths and there were many other faiths represented here today”.
We spoke to Abdulkarim Gheewala, Chair of the Federation Of Muslim Organisations, he told us: “we are not on our own, there are people who understand that this kind of event has nothing to do with us and that we do not approve this kind of innocent peoples killing, in any form and shape, and we strongly disapprove and we condemn it strongly. I think we also want to be with the families of those people who have suffered in Paris, so it is a way of expressing our solidarity with the victims and their families and those who have suffered”.
A Muslim Woman who attended, said: “I’m really very shocked and I’m really saddened for the families of the victims, the most frustrating thing for me is I think it’s really unfair that they are blaming Islam and Muslims, I don’t know why they call themselves Islamic state, they should actually call themselves terrorist state because Islam has no place for terror”.
