The secretary general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeledinn Isahnoglu, Tuesday announced the setting up of a rights watchdog to “curb smear campaigns against Islam across the world”.
Isahnoglu told newsmen here the decision to set up the Islam watchdog was taken at the two-day meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs of the Islamic Ummah member countries.
According to Isahnoglu, “The body is expected to help OIC abort all smear campaigns attempting to depict Islam as a religion of violence, war or terrorism.”
He recalled that during the Doha (Qatar) conference 15-16 February 2008, a declaration was made and adopted, in collaboration with the UN and the European Union, to end “these extremism acts but unfortunately those pledges have not been fulfilled”.
He lamented what he called “The extremist attitudes by intellectuals from some western countries,” adding “We think that a spirit of solidarity and responsibility must prevail to end these smear campaigns.
Also, the ministers decided to send an OIC delegation to Darfur and to provide a humanitarian and political contribution to the Sudanese western region which ha s been plagued by a civil war for four years.
Measures were also adopted to help underdeveloped countries mainly through an Islamic Solidarity Fund set up with the support of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) with an initial capital of US$ 2.5 billion.
