The panel discussion on the Viewpoint of divine religion on the fight against terrorism was hold during two days Ayatollah Hadavi Tehrani was the chairman of this panel and delivered the summary of the panel in the closing ceremony of the conference (26 June 2011).
This is the summary text:
The panel discussion on the Viewpoint of divine religion on the fight against terrorism listened to presentations from panelist Archbishop Dr. Farhat, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss and Dr. Abdunnabi Sattarzadeh and myself on the issue of religions and terrorism.
The panel commended the Islamic Republic of Iran holding International Conference on Global Fight against Terrorism and rendered its support to the Conference as an effort to build peaceful co-existence among people in the world.
The panel welcomed the decision to continue holding of such conference in future, including the establishment of a permanent secretariat for the Conference.
The panel re-emphasized that all divine religion are messengers of peace and respect for human dignity and therefore, terrorism should not be attributed to terrorism in any of its forms or manifestations. No religion commends people to kill themselves or other innocent people.
The panel underscored that the followers of Islam, Christianity and Judaism have a history of peaceful co-existence all over the world including Iran, and there should not be any rift between followers of these three divine religions.
The issue of Zionism was raised in the panel and it was emphasized that Zionism by no means represent Judaism. Zionists detest religions and abuse Judaism for their political purposes. Occupation of Palestine is an act of terrorism which was committed by Zionists.
The panel noted that the Zionist Regime since its inception committed acts of state terrorism inside and outside of Palestine, and is a source of global terrorism. Furthermore, the domination of Zionism over the global mass media was noted as a tool for justification of Zionist’s state terrorism.
Attribution of terrorism and extremism to Islam is part Islamphobic activities in the West and unfortunately such movements are still in existence due to the anti-Islamic bias of certain group in the Western countries. The panel urged all countries to hart such anti-Islamic activities, thus contribute to the peaceful coexistence of all followers of all divine religions.
The panel stressed that illegal activities of certain individuals should not be generalized and used as a pretext to associate religions with terrorism. The panel furthermore, requested that defamation of religions, in particular defamation of Islam should be avoided.
It was mentioned that there should be a clear cut distinction between legitimate struggle of people under foreign occupation and domination for realizing their fundamental right to self-determination and heinous acts of terrorism.
It was stressed that both theoretical and sociological approaches reject any linkage between religion and terrorism.
The panel underlined the fact that the role of divine religions on the promotion of justice, and fight against discrimination, poverty, occupation and domination as grounds for terrorism should be further discussed and defined.
The panel expressed deep concerns over the defamation of religious values and sanctities under the pretext of freedom, and that such defaming attitudes would eventually lead to violence and hostility among people.
Office of Ayatollah Mahdi Hadavi Tehrani