This comes as Merah’s shooting dead of seven people has occurred just a month before France’s presidential election.
France’s Muslims who have distanced themselves from the self-proclaimed Jihadist are adamant that such a tragedy not be used to win votes in next month’s election, as the country’s Muslim community has often been manipulated for political gain.
“The immense majority of the Muslim community is just as shocked as everyone, especially with regards to the dead children. They don’t understand Merah and they certainly don’t support his actions,” said Youssef Boussoumah of the indigenous Party of the Republic.
“Frances politicians must look within themselves for the right way to respond and it is not to blame Islam. The entire French society must look within themselves for the moral lessons here and that goes for Muslims too, who are also French,” Boussoumah noted.
According to the claims of French officials, Merah has attributed his actions to anger at the deaths of Palestinian children in Gaza, France’s intolerant ban on the burqa and the country’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
“Since Mohammed Merah was 11 years old he has lived through 9/11; invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, the threats of war in Iran; he has watched the rise of the national front and the introduction of many Islamophobic laws; this whole generation has grown up in a detestable climate of violence- this can never excuse his actions of course but we should know that violence in one part of the world has consequences in other parts of the world,” Boussoumah said.
Merah is suspected of killing a rabbi and his 3 and 6-year-old sons in a shooting spree at a Jewish school in Toulouse. The 10-year-old daughter of the school’s principal was killed in the incident that left a fifth person injured.
The French police linked the attack to two other shootings last week, in which three soldiers of North African or Caribbean descent were killed.
Police sources say a same gun has been used in all the attacks and that the modus operandi of the killings indicates military training.
VG/JR/AZ
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