“I wish to condemn with reservation the vile and disgusting
film by Israeli filmmaker Sam Bacile, produced in the United
States which depicts the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in a
derogatory way. The only intention of this evil man is to
cause harm to the hearts of Muslims and create more friction
amongst our diverse communities. Islam is ready to be
challenged and questioned but to do it in such a way
suggests their real intentions are to promote division and
harm Muslims.
As Muslims we believe derogatory comments or depictions of
any faith or its symbols is unacceptable and in particular
in Islam it is totally forbidden to depict our Holy Prophet
Muhammad in this way. What concerns me more is that this
man funded his film of $5 million from Jewish donors, at a
time when there is mistrust between our communities surely
we should all be working together to understand and respect
each other’s faith. We call on the Jewish community to
condemn this film and those that have donated to it. We
urge the United States Government to consider banning this
film as it is promoting incitement to religious hatred. Sam
Bacile has said Islam is a cancer, that to me is not an
intellectual response to Islam but one of a man full of
hatred.
I also wish to condemn the killing of the US Ambassador in
Benghazi yesterday and the violence in Egypt, whilst we
Muslims are hurting and disgusted at his film we must
maintain peaceful protest and ensure we channel our anger
towards those that have done such actions.
To those that say Muslims want to restrict freedom of
speech, our reaction is quite simple: with freedom of speech
comes responsibility and a need to respect, this film fails
to do that and that’s why it should be banned. We call on
YouTube to do the decent thing and remove this film from its
site immediately and we call on Muslims to contact the
website to register their complaint.
I urge the Muslim world to remain calm and peaceful and we
stand ready to engage the US Government on why this sort of
film is unacceptable.”
END
Notes for editors
For immediate media interview requests please ring 07989
764624 (Media only)
-
The Ramadhan Foundation is a leading Muslim organisation
in the UK that is working for peaceful co-existence and
dialogue for all communities.
-
The Ramadhan Foundation has complained to the US
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton this morning and also complained to YouTube.
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Based in Greater Manchester and working to also
establish the platform for human unity amongst our
communities in the UK
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Mohammed Shafiq is 33, Chief Executive of the Ramadhan
Foundation, a regular contributor on TV, Radio, Online
and also newspaper columnist
