11/3/2004 2:30:00 PM GMT
Afghanistan’s leading council of Muslim scholars denounced the abduction of three foreign UN employees in Kabul as un-Islamic and demanded the kidnappers to free the hostages immediately.
“Islam is (a) religion of peace and kindness and those who resort to such actions must know that their actions can only defame Islam and have no other result,” the Ulema Council said in a resolution released Monday to the media.
“The Ulema Council of Afghanistan seriously asks those who have taken these people hostage to release them.” It added.
The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Fazel Hadi Shinwary, leads the Ulema Council, which is made up by many religious scholars from all over the nation.
The Council’s decisions have strong religious impact in Afghanistan’s Islamic community. The council said that the kidnappings contradict with the Islamic law.
It also stressed that the hostages- who were working for the United Nations to help manage the October 9 presidential elections- were legitimately in Afghanistan, contrary to the kidnappers’ claims.
It added that those who kill people who are legitimately in a Muslim country “won’t smell the fragrance of heaven”.
A group kidnapped Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Shqipe Habibi from Kosovo and Filipino Angelito Nayan from their UN car in Kabul on Thursday.
The captors have threatened to execute them by midday (0730 GMT) today if foreign forces and the United Nations do not leave Afghanistan.
The group has also demanded the United States to free all Taliban detainees and that foreign governments denounce the “infidel invasion” of Afghanistan.