"One cannot hurt religious feelings of millions of Muslims by using expressions 'Islamic extremism"

Pashayeva said it was pleasant that the Alliance of Civilizations initiated by Turkey and Spain had become a UN project and was supported by over 100 members of the organization and friendship groups of the international organizations.

“Being PACE we should strongly support this alliance and struggle against the increase of intolerance, decrease of tolerance, xenophobia in Europe. We all should concern over the increase of Islamophobia in Europe. We should analyze its reasons and struggle against them. One of the visible reasons is that people in Europe have little true knowledge about Islam. Therefore, we should strengthen our efforts so that the youth in Europe can get true information about Christianity, Islam and Judaism. But as my colleague from the Netherlands Mr. Koks said, that the most serious problem is that some politicians, media outlets and nongovernmental organizations play big role in the increase of Islamophobia. We should struggle against it. That’s why, we should call on the governments, politicians, NGOs and mass media to be attentive in this issue. We hear some politicians use expression “Islamic extremism” in some European media outlets. This is a very wrong expression, there can not be extremism where there is Islam,” she said.

Pashayeva said that it was not right to touch upon religious sense of millions of Moslems by using such expressions: “People who know Islam, who read holy book of Islam know that Islam is religion of love and respect for others. Prejudices are very dangerous in a globalizing world. We must assume as a basis one conception which can eliminate “us and them” – the symbol of polarization. We must not forget that impatience cause confrontation. Unfortunately, impatience towards other religions and nations, ethnic cleansing became state policy of some countries. It must worry all of us. It was just the result of it. Armenian government conducted ethnic cleansing in 1988 and turned out all Azerbaijanis from Armenia. Today, there are no Azerbaijanis in Armenia. More than one million Azerbaijanis are refugees and IDPs”.

Pashayeva also reminded about the Armenian massacre in Khojaly.

“Armenian church still remains in Azerbaijan. But mosques, historical-cultural monuments belonging to Azerbaijan have been destroyed in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. We must learn from such incidents and struggle against it. Otherwise, tension and conflicts will increase in the world and we will leave a worse legacy to future generations. We all must say – “Intercultural dialogue” is possible against those, who offer confrontation of cultures for the sake of Europe and the world”.


/APA/