Moderate Muslims must take a stand against religious extremists, Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said, warning that failure to do so would lead to Islam being "hijacked."
In an interview with the BBC's East Asia Today program Friday night, Lee said the silence of moderates over deadly bomb attacks such as the ones in Bali and Madrid made it appear that only the US and its allies were fighting extremists.
Lee said "the crux of the battle, really, is between moderate and extreme Muslims."
However, moderate Muslims were "keeping out of sight" at the moment, he said.
"But if Madrid, 9/11, Bali and so on keep going on and the moderates in the Muslim world keep silent, either condone or duck the issue, then there is a danger that the West may begin to feel, that really, there are no champions to counter these terrorists," Lee said.
"That would become a very dangerous problem," he said in the interview.
"I am saying that moderates in the Muslim world, by not being able to take a stand and take the lead and start the argument with the extremists in the mosques, in the madrasah [religious schools], they are ducking the issue and allowing the extremists to hijack not just Islam but the whole of the Muslim community."
The former premier said there was a danger the war on terror would widen the differences between Islam and the West, but this could be prevented if the moderates made their stand clear.
"Let's take 9/11 or Madrid," he said, referring to the September 11, 2001 airborne attacks in the US and the March 11 bombing in the Spanish capital that killed 190.
"If nobody except Europeans and Americans and those who are already committed condemn this -- I mean if all Muslim countries stay silent or Muslim groups stay silent -- then there is the danger that the Europeans and Americans may come to the conclusion, `Look, there's really nobody on the other side that's standing up against this evil.'"
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked