The Muslim Judicial council has spoken out in condemnation against the recent attacks in France, more particularly on French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday.

Spokesperson Nabeweyah Malick said that as the MJC they condemned in the fullest sense the killing of 12 innocent French nationals, amongst them several journalists and cartoonists.

“As a religious body we believe that there is no justification for the killing of innocent people. We are very saddened by the attack, which unfortunately has now been portrayed as an attack in the name of religion,” said Malick.

Malick also added that the MJC believe that no religion promoted or advocated for the killing of innocent civilians.

She explained that the attack could not be linked to any particular religion, further suggesting that there was no indication prior to the attack that there would be any form of retaliation against the publication.

However Malick said that there were questions and concerns that there might be have been other motives behind the incident.

She stated that it was rather unfortunate the broader Muslim community would feel the brunt of the blame, and that they would be the targeted community whenever crimes of such a nature occurred.

Malick emphasized that no religious group could claim that there was no criminal element within their community, and therefore if a criminal act did occur, it would be unfair to blame the entire religion for the acts of a few.

She also stated that whilst such crimes were being perpetrated on an almost daily basis, particularly across the Middle East, the fact that they were being under-reported was a worrying factor. She went on to say that there was a huge concern for how and what news was being publicized on a large scale. VOC (Imogen Vollenhoven)