United Nations:India has strongly condemned violence perpetrated in the name of religion, declaring that it “strikes at our common humanity”.
India’s Deputy Permanent Representative Bhagwant S. Bishnoi told the Security Council on Friday: “We would like to lend our voice to condemn violence perpetrated in the name of religion and ethnicity in the Middle East and elsewhere.”
He was participating in a Security Council debate on “The victims of attacks and abuse on ethnic or religious grounds in the Middle East”.To combat international terrorism that is responsible for the violence against religious and ethnic groups in the Middle East, Bishnoi called for “the early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, as well as developing suitable regulatory frameworks for prosecution of terrorist outfits and personnel”.
Although it has been nine years since the UN General Assembly moved to develop such a convention , the effort has been deadlocked over the definition of terrorism.
In this context, he mentioned a Security Council resolution on foreign terrorist fighters and said it should strike at them using the legal measures it now has.
In his remarks about religious violence and persecution, Bishnoi avoided identifying the religion or ethnicity of the perpetrators or the victims. But UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon mentioned the Islamic State (IS) Sunni radical group and its affiliates as the perpetrators of the violence against minorities while others listed Christians, Yezidis, Shabaks, Turkmens, Sunnis and Shias among the victims.
Ban said that in September the UN would launch an action plan on preventing violent extremism and that he planned to form an advisory group of religious, civil, cultural, academic and business leaders on sectarian issues. He added that next month he and UN General Assembly President Sam Kutesa would invite faith leaders to a special event on promoting tolerance. (IANS)
