Moderate Muslims must take a stand against religious extremists, Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew said, warning that failure to do so would lead to Islam being "hijacked."
In an interview with the BBC's East Asia Today program Friday night, Lee said the silence of moderates over deadly bomb attacks such as the ones in Bali and Madrid made it appear that only the US and its allies were fighting extremists.
Lee said "the crux of the battle, really, is between moderate and extreme Muslims."
However, moderate Muslims were "keeping out of sight" at the moment, he said.
"But if Madrid, 9/11, Bali and so on keep going on and the moderates in the Muslim world keep silent, either condone or duck the issue, then there is a danger that the West may begin to feel, that really, there are no champions to counter these terrorists," Lee said.
"That would become a very dangerous problem," he said in the interview.
"I am saying that moderates in the Muslim world, by not being able to take a stand and take the lead and start the argument with the extremists in the mosques, in the madrasah [religious schools], they are ducking the issue and allowing the extremists to hijack not just Islam but the whole of the Muslim community."
The former premier said there was a danger the war on terror would widen the differences between Islam and the West, but this could be prevented if the moderates made their stand clear.
"Let's take 9/11 or Madrid," he said, referring to the September 11, 2001 airborne attacks in the US and the March 11 bombing in the Spanish capital that killed 190.
"If nobody except Europeans and Americans and those who are already committed condemn this -- I mean if all Muslim countries stay silent or Muslim groups stay silent -- then there is the danger that the Europeans and Americans may come to the conclusion, `Look, there's really nobody on the other side that's standing up against this evil.'"
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its
A new tropical storm is expected to form by early tomorrow morning, potentially developing into a medium-strength typhoon that is to affect Taiwan through Wednesday next week, the Central Weather Administration said today. There are currently two tropical systems circulating to the east of Taiwan, agency forecaster Hsu Chung-yi (徐仲毅) said. The one currently north of Guam developed into Tropical Storm Gebi this afternoon and is expected to veer toward Japan without affecting Taiwan, Hsu said. Another tropical depression is 600km from the east coast and is likely to develp into the named storm Krathon either late tonight or early tomorrow, he said. This