'Islam has nothing to do with terrorism'

The first head of Arab Anti-terrorism Experts Council Dr Ashraf Mohsin yesterday said the idea of Islamic terrorism and Arab terrorism had been corrected and the respect of Islam as a religion restored.

Dr Mohsen, also Egypt’s deputy assistant Foreign Minister and co-ordinator for counter-terrorism, was speaking at the anti-terrorism event in Doha yesterday and said that the UN had agreed that terrorism was not linked to a race, or religion or a culture.

“While it used to be jargon (linking Islam), the change has happened. Now the emphasis by all UN officers is that Islam has nothing to do with it,” he said.

“In 2005, a solution to delete all verses in the Qur’an that referred to war was proposed as part of eliminating terrorism. This ‘purification’ of the Qur’an was not allowed. This is a real achievement,” he told the conference audience.

Islam, he said, never committed a crime, the damage came from bad Muslims.

“Islam is stronger than the allegations and no harm can happen to it. It’s the ‘Islamic extremists’ that should be viewed separately,” he said.

The Arab Anti-terrorism Experts Council began working in 2009, after building on earlier attempts beginning in 2007. It is represented by all 22 Arab-speaking countries and submits recommendations to the Arab League.

“The challenge is to look at the root cause of terrorism. You can arrest 90 terrorists but one incident takes place failing the other efforts,” Dr Mohsen said.

According to him, the cause of terrorism - as demonstrated by scholarly research - is foreign occupation.

“Things have criminalized terrorism, both legally and socially,” he said.