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Seat of Sunni Islam denounces Syria crackdown
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By Dina Zayed
Reuters / Uruknet
Wednesday, Aug 10, 2011
(Reuters)
- The head of the most influential school of Sunni Islam added his
voice Monday to international and Arab criticism of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad's assault on protesters, describing the bloodshed as a
human tragedy that must stop.
A five-month crackdown on protests in Syria has emerged as one of the
bloodiest episodes in the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world. The
violence has escalated sharply in the past week with tank assaults on
two mainly Sunni cities.
Other Arab countries, which had been slow to criticize a fellow Arab
state, abruptly distanced themselves from Assad on Monday, with Saudi
Arabia and others announcing they were recalling their ambassadors from
Damascus.
A statement from Grand Imam Ahmed el-Tayeb, head of Cairo-based
al-Azhar, a university and clerical body that has been a central seat of
Sunni scholarship since the Middle Ages, said the body owed it to the
Syrian people to "clearly announce matters have gone beyond the limit."
"This is a human tragedy that cannot be accepted," Tayeb said in the
statement carried by Egypt's state news agency MENA. "Blood was shed,
families were split up ... and unarmed people are being fought with live
ammunition, iron and fire."
"Blood only fuels the fires of revolutions," Tayeb said, calling on
Syrian authorities to immediately stop the bloodshed and respond to the
"legitimate demands of the people."
Source: Reuters / Uruknet
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