The GIC’s annual Regional Council meeting 2021
Download the C-CAT Update – January 16, 2022:
C-CAT Update – Jan. 16, 2022
C-CAT is now publicly listed as an advisor to the Global Imams Council (GIC) based in Iraq – The GIC has issued a statement regarding the attack on the Colleyville Synagogue
The GIC is based in the Holy City of Najaf in Iraq. The Council is “the world’s first and largest international non-governmental body of Muslim faith leaders from all Islamic denominations with 1,350 imams serving 800 communities across 70 nations and representing 90 nationalities.” C-CAT is listed on the GIC site along with major international institutions collaborating or engaging with the GIC including: the U.S. Department of State, the EU, the Vatican, the Iraqi General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, and the World Uyghur Congress. The GIC has publicly taken strong, principled and authoritative stands against antisemitism and lslamist extremism. C-CAT is the first Canadian organization on the GIC list.
The GIC Declaration on Colleyville: An Islamic Clerical Condemnation of Supporters of Convicted Terrorist and Rabid Antisemite Aafia Siddiqui
Global Imams Council declarations are binding on all current and future members of the GlC: including all mosques, centers, institutes, and organizations operated by GIC Imams worldwide.
Islamic clerical condemnation of Pakistan, various human rights groups, and Islamist organizations in the US and across the globe that, like the hostage-taker in Colleyville, have sought the freedom of Aaifa Siddiqui from an American prison.
Often referred to as “Lady Al-Qaida”, Siddiqui, a rabid antisemite, has become an icon amongst Islamist extremists “who hope to free her as some kind of trophy in the Islamist terrorist hierarchy of achievements.”
Please note paragraphs 3 and 4 of the GIC declaration:
Unlike apologists in the US and across the globe, that condemn the hostage-taking incident at the synagogue in Colleyville but defend Siddiqui’s innocence, there is no equivocation in the GIC statement. It is an unqualified condemnation of Pakistan and other Islamic groups that continue to claim that Siddiqui is a victim of the “war on terror”; “a daughter of the [Pakistani] nation”; and “one of the greatest examples of injustice in U.S. history”.
The GIC and C-CAT
1. C-CAT and the GIC: C-CAT has worked closely over the last two years with Council reps on a series of groundbreaking declarations targeting antisemitic icons, conspiracies, and terrorist and extremist entities including the IRGC, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The first declaration was a formal adoption by the Council of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. For more on this click here.
2. The Critical Import of Clerical Influence in Fighting Radicalization and Extremism: Clerics in the Muslim world are a key political and cultural force both within, but also well beyond, the region’s political frameworks. Clerical efforts like those of the GIC, are therefore indispensable in curtailing the influence of Islamist extremists, clerics and institutions who regularly and effectively dismiss and delegitimize state entities who oppose them, as enemies of the Muslim world fundamentally at odds with Islamic sensibilities.
3. A Clerical Voice Against Genocidal Islamist Jew-hatred: Islamist antisemitism is at the very heart of the theology, strategies, and writings of extremist entities like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Khomeinists of Iran. It is uncompromising, unrelenting, and openly genocidal. For these groups that have tens of millions of adherents and sympathizers, antisemitism is neither a rhetorical tactic nor a secondary objective, but a raison d’être. It is a central organizing principle that animates and informs the worldview and policies of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and fuels the onslaughts of a plethora of terrorist groups that Islamism has spawned, tolerated, or actively supported.
Notably, Islamist antisemitism has demonstrated unique capacities as a “super-spreader” of Jew-hatred across the globe. Its canards have been adopted, amplified, and normalized by extremists on both ends of the political spectrum throughout western world. Islamist antisemitism is a key driver and catalyst of global antisemitism and is now being directly and unambiguously confronted by the GIC on an unprecedented institutional scale. This is likely to have significant impact both on the ground and throughout the political corridors of the Islamic world.
We will shortly be providing more information and analysis on several other recent declarations related to extremism and antisemitism. Each declaration represents an important steppingstone in creating an ideational, theological, and educational platform for transformative change from within the Islamic world on the ground floor of the extremist threat. These GIC declarations are binding on all current and future members of the GlC: including all affiliate Mosques, Centers, Institutes and Organizations operated by the Imams of this council worldwide.
From the GIC Website
For more on the GIC adoption of the IHRA definition click here.
