Former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami on Friday condemned the Sept. 11 attacks in the US as an atrocity and said suicide bombers did Islam an injustice and would not go to heaven.
Three days before the fifth anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, the Shiite cleric urged Muslims to work against "Islamaphobia," which he said had grown since Islamic militants flew hijacked aircraft into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
Two crimes were committed on Sept. 11 -- civilians were killed and it was done in the name of Islam, Khatami told the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a human rights group.
"We Muslims should condemn these atrocities even more strongly," he said.
"[A] terrorist, which means killing of civilians, is a human being that lacks morality ... [and] will not go to heaven" and those who commit terrorist acts in the name of Islam "are lying," he said.
Nearing the end of a five-city US visit in which he largely stressed themes of dialogue and co-existence, Khatami continued to stir controversy.
A US-based pro-Israel group, the Israel Project, complained in a press release that the president was "working to whitewash Iran's record of nuclear developments, support for terror and human rights violations."
In a Time magazine interview, Khatami said he regretted the 1979 US hostage crisis and acknowledged the Holocaust of 6 million Jews as "historical fact."
"I believe the Holocaust is the crime of Nazism," Khatami told Time magazine.
"But it is possible that the Holocaust, which is an absolute fact, a historical fact, would be misused. The Holocaust should not be, in any way, an excuse for the suppression of Palestinian rights," he told the New York-based newsweekly.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied publicly the Holocaust, as recently as last month.
However, Khatami said he doubted his successor had malicious intentions.
"I personally believe that he really didn't deny the existence of the Holocaust," he said.
NETWORK-MAPPING PROJECT: The database contains 170 detailed files of Taiwanese politicians and about 23 million records of household registration data in Taiwan China has developed a network-mapping project targeting political figures and parties in Taiwan to monitor public opinion during elections and to craft tailored influence campaigns aimed at dividing Taiwanese society, according to documents leaked by Chinese technology firm GoLaxy (中科天璣). The documents, collected by Taipei-based Doublethink Lab, showed a database was specifically created to gather detailed information on Taiwanese political figures, including their political affiliations, job histories, birthplaces, residences, education, religion and a brief biography about them. Several notable Taiwanese politicians are in the database, including President William Lai (賴清德), former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍),
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
RSS