Muslim leaders call for calm as police probe attacks on churches

By Ally Jamah

Muslim leaders have criticised attacks on two churches in Garissa that left at least 16 people dead.

Chairman of Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (Supkem) Abdulghafur El-Busaidy said targeting a place of worship and killing those inside is barbaric.

“Any place of worship has to be respected by all. Whoever executed the attacks, no matter what religion he professes, has to be condemned and punished. Targeting innocent civilians is inexcusable,” he said on Sunday at Supkem offices in Nairobi

The Supkem boss noted Islam and Muslim do not condone acts of murder and terrorism.

He added whoever committed the crimes should be judged individually and not as representatives of any community or religion.

“Islam and Muslims dissociate themselves from such criminal activities and relevant State security agencies must move with speed to apprehend the criminals,” he said.

El-Busaidy sent condolences to families of those who lost their loved ones.

Human comprehension

He was accompanied by Supkem’s Secretary General Adan Wachu and Organising Secretary Shariff Hussein, among other officials.

Association of Muslim Organisations in Kenya (Amok) also strongly denounced the church attacks.

Amok’s director-general Fazul Mohamed said a terrorist attack on a place of worship reflects moral bankruptcy of perpetrators of such crimes.

“Who can target innocent people who were attending religious services in a house of worship? Such is terrorism that even escapes human comprehension. But we must not despair. We will eventually defeat such criminals,” he said.

Fazul said the attacks may be aiming to fuel sectarian strife pitting Muslims against Christians, but insisted that such a scenario would never pass.

He distanced Islam and true Muslims from such terrorist attacks, saying the whole community should not be blamed as a result of a few individuals.

Ethnic group

He termed the terror attack a pure act of criminals that knows no religion, ethnic group or race.

“If it emerges that people of Muslim faith have undertaken the attacks, then they should be treated as criminals and not Muslims. A criminal is just a criminal. Islam does not teach anyone to kill innocent civilians,” he said.

He called on religious leaders to speak against terror attacks and protect gullible youth from being drawn into deviant groups that use terrorism as a tool to drive their agenda.

“We should protect our youth from being recruited into groups that twist teachings of religion to commit criminal acts. That only serves to soil the good name of religion,” he said.