Rage as main UK college’s Islamic society mourns ‘martyr’ Khamenei | UK | News | EUROtoday

A London college Islamic society has been been engulfed in controversy after publicly celebrating the lifetime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following his dying in joint US-Israeli strikes, urging Shia Muslims within the West to stay “aware and ready.”

The Ahlul-Bayt Islamic Society at University College London posted tributes to the Supreme Leader on Instagram, with the society’s psychological well being workforce writing that his killing represented an “unimaginable loss for the entire Ummah” — the Arabic time period for the worldwide Muslim group — accompanied by a damaged coronary heart emoji.

The group put out an intensive assertion declaring “we express our sincere condolences on the martyrdom of our beloved”, and telling followers to “not allow the enemies of justice to rejoice over Muslim blood.”

The man they mourned had presided over a long time of systematic human rights abuses, the torture, rape and slaughter of hundreds of Iranian residents, the suppression of girls’s rights and the financing of terrorist organisations throughout the Middle East. President Trump referred to as him “one of the most evil people in history” as he confirmed the Supreme Leader’s dying.

‘A shame’

The Daily Mail reported on how former Home Secretary Suella Braverman took the matter to Parliament, the place she delivered a pointed condemnation. “Disgracefully the pro-Ayatollah student society plans to host a commemorative event in name of the ‘fallen’ on the campus of University College London, i.e. in support of those who supported the brutal IRGC regime,” she mentioned.

“This is utterly wrong, that taxpayer-funded university resource is being used to propagate the murderous ideology of the Tehran regime which has attacked UK bases and with whom we are effectively at war.”

UCL pupil and creator Dov Forman mentioned the posts went far past acceptable campus expression. “A UCL student society publicly mourning Ayatollah Khamenei and urging Shia in the West to stay ‘aware and ready’. On a UK campus. Universities cannot keep pretending this is just ‘student expression,'” he mentioned.

Society hits again

Facing a tide of criticism, the society sought to reframe the controversy by drawing a parallel between Khamenei’s standing amongst Shia Muslims and the position of the Pope in Catholicism.

In a put up on Monday, they wrote: “For millions of Shia Muslims worldwide, Ayatollah Khamenei occupies a role broadly analogous to that of the Pope within Catholicism. A supreme religious authority whose death or targeting is experienced not merely as a political event, but as a profound communal and spiritual shock.”

The group maintained that its tribute amounted to neither “incitement, endorsement of violence, or unlawful mobilisation”, insisting that paying respects to the Iranian chief fell throughout the bounds of “lawful expression” beneath freedom of expression and educational freedom.

The Express has reached out to UCL’s Islamic Society for remark.