Editorial | Don’t blame Islam for terror attacks

  • Following heated reactions to atrocities in France and Austria, it is now time for moderation from all to avoid playing into the hands of deluded extremists

Muslims protesters attend a protest against French President Emmanuel Macron in Surabaya. Photo: AFP
If there were any doubt about the abiding threat of Islamic extremism to European security and tolerance after the two most recent atrocities in France, it has been extinguished by four apparently random murders in Vienna. Austrian police who shot dead one of two gunmen identified him as an Islamic State (Isis) sympathiser. Earlier two psychopaths brought to a sickening end a pause in terrorism on the streets of France, with the beheading of a Paris schoolteacher and the deaths of three people, including another beheading, in a knife attack in a Nice basilica.

The two incidents revived horrific memories. As part of a lesson on free speech, the teacher had discussed with students political cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, a blasphemy in the eyes of the faithful that led to the slaughter of 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015. A year later 86 people died in Nice under a truck driven by a Muslim extremist on Bastille Day.

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