Boumerdes (Algeria), Aug 24, 2013 (SPS) - The League of Sahel Ulemas (scholars) expressed Thursday in Boumerdes, Algeria, its “indignation” toward Morocco’s attempts to qualify the Saharawi people of being terrorists, underlining the legitimacy of the resistance of Saharawi people against the Moroccan occupation.
In a lecture he presented during the Summer University of Cadres of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) held in Boumerdes, the Secretary General of the League, Sheikh Youssef Mechria, said that the attempts to “tarnish” the Saharawi resistance by saying that the Sahrawi people are terrorist to “obtaining an illegitimate right.”
“The fight of the Sahrawi people to drive the occupation out of their land is a fight against colonialism as it was the case of the Algerian revolution against the French colonialism,” he argued.
However, he deplored the use by the media of the term “jihad” to describe terrorists whose behavior is totally alien to Islam.Jihad, he underlined, is legitimate when it comes to defense land and national sovereignty as is the case for the Saharawi cause.
On the other hand, Sheikh Mechria said that the phenomenon of terrorism “has no connection with the Saharawi people and the Polisario leadership,” adding that Saharawi state sponsoring of religions’ dialogue, expected next December, “is a best evidence of that.”
He concluded his lecture by calling on the Muslim and Arab world to support the Saharawi cause by intensifying the humanitarian aid.
“It is inconceivable that Spanish, European and American associations support the Saharawi people in their suffering, whereas the Muslim world remains a spectator,” he added. (SPS)
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