UN Chief Expresses Solidarity To Muslim Community At New York Mosque

(@FahadShabbir)

UN Chief Expresses Solidarity to Muslim Community at New York Mosque

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd March, 2019) UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his solidarity to the Muslim community around the world during his visit to the Islamic Cultural Center of New York on Friday one week after the terrorist attack at two mosques in New Zealand.

"I am here on this holy day to express my solidarity and to offer my support to you, to your community and to your families," Guterres said at the mosque. "The United Nations is with you. And I am with you."

During the Friday prayer service, Guterres called on the international community to stand together and protect houses of worship around the world amid the rise of Islamophobia.

Earlier in the day, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) adopted a communique at an emergency meeting on the New Zealand mosque shootings, asking the United Nations to declare March 15 an international anti-Islamophobia day.

New Zealand was rocked by two mass shootings last week at Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Center in Christchurch that left 50 people dead and another 50 injured. After the attacks last Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern branded the tragedy as an act of terrorism, saying that the country had faced its "darkest day."

The attack suspect, Brenton Tarrant, is a 28-year-old Australian national and resident of New Zealand who had expressed strong anti-migrant and anti-Muslim views in a lengthy manifesto.