The Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, has expressed his strong condemnation of the decision made by an Israeli court to allow bulldozing Maman-Allah cemetery in the City of Al Quds, as the graveyard is an Islamic Waqf [endowed land] that includes Islamic endowed buildings and the remains of tens of thousands of Muslims, notably the Prophet's Companions, Muslim martyrs and scholars. In a press statement issued here today, the Secretary General considered that the desecration of graves and the remains of dead Muslims is a gross violation of the sanctity of the dead, just as it is a blatant infringement of Muslim endowments built on the same site. Ihsanoglu noted that since Israel engaged in the desecration of the graveyard and the exhumation of Muslim graves, the OIC has issued a warning about the gravity of the Israeli attacks on Muslim graves. The Secretary General said he also initiated contacts with the UN Secretary General and the Director General of UNESCO and a number of officials in the world to stop this flagrant aggression. Ihsanoglu called upon the international community to intervene in order to hold Israel from carrying through its criminal act and put an immediate end to the desecration of Muslim cemeteries and aggression against Muslim property and sacred sites.
