Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that Muslims must improve the image of Islam in light of the evil of the Islamic State (ISIS) that has stained the religion as violent, according to foreign news agencies.
The report on Reuters omitted what was headlined in the Iranian regime-controlled Mehr News Agency, which headlined:
Ignoring Zionist crimes in Islamic world implausible – Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani slammed disappearance of addressing and broadcasting violence and crimes of Zionist regime in the Islamic world.
Rouhani was speaking at an international “unity” conference, which he said he hopes will help unify Muslims.
He called on Muslims “to follow a fair, moderate tone of discourse which is far from any kind of extremism, which he said results in violence.”
Iran is fearful of the Islamic State (ISIS), which has the same objective of the Tehran regime by wanting to create a Caliphate in the entire Middle East, for starters, before conquering the rest of the world.
The real difference between Iran and the ISIS is who calls the shots, or in their case, who swings the knife or tightens the noose.
Rouhani implied the rest of the world should have listened to him two years ago when Iran proposed the “World Against Violence and Extremism” to the United Nations. “Although seemingly passed unanimously by Muslim and non-Muslim countries, no measure of good faith was taken in practice,” he said.
Ignoring the “Zionist crimes,” which means the existence of Israel, the Iranian president referred to Islamic civil war and added:
If the world wants peace, all have to work together against extremism, violence and terrorism.
Why are we so silent in the face of all the killing and bloodshed? Do we help those who are the main cause of crimes? Is it not a disgrace to the Islamic world that innocent Muslims with their small children, with women, travel during the harsh winter, inside the river or sea with boats to seek refuge in non-Islamic countries?
We have to eliminate the negative interpretation of Islam in the virtual and real world; the great injustice is not only upon Muslims and the people of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen; it is also the greatest injustice in the face of Islam.
His thesis tried to distance Islam in Iran from ISIS. Rouhani asked, “Did we ever think that, instead of enemies, an albeit small group from within the Islamic world using the language of Islam, would present it as the religion of killing, violence, whips, extortion and injustice?”
Reuters did not ask if “the religion of killing, violence, whips, extortion and injustice” also exists in Iran but took care to call Rouhani “a relative moderate” who supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who also is trying to defeat the ISIS.
Assad also continues to use chemical weapons and raid civilian population centers with barrel bombs.
“Rouhani the moderate” as secretary of Supreme National Security Council in 1999, stated in a pro-government rally during student protests, “At dusk yesterday we received a decisive revolutionary order to crush mercilessly and monumentally any move of these opportunist elements wherever it may occur. From today our people shall witness how in the arena our law enforcement force . . . shall deal with these opportunists and riotous elements, if they simply dare to show their faces.”
Since taking office as president, more than 600 people have been executed, usually by hanging, which for Rouhani may be a more moderate type of Islam than the ISIS practice of beheading.