Leader’s Remarks on Hajj Tragedy Creates New Wave against Saudis: Bahraini Figure
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior Bahraini opposition figure said recent remarks made by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on the last year's deadly crush of Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia have sparked a new wave among Muslim nations, calling for a probe into the incident.
Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, Sheikh Abdullah Saleh, the deputy secretary general of Bahrain’s Islamic Action Society, highlighted the silence of the international community regarding the crush of people in Saudi Arabia’s Mina in September 2015, which killed more than 7,000 pilgrims.
“The problem is that the Saudis make everyone silent with their money,” the cleric said, adding, “As Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution has said, no fact-finding committee has been established to probe into Mina tragedy.”
Sheikh Saleh went on to say that the Leader’s remarks has caused a new wave in the Muslim world, which is calling for a fact-finding mission to investigate the tragedy.
He made the remarks on the occasion of the first anniversary of the deadly crush of people during the last year’s Hajj rituals in Mina, near the Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca, which claimed the lives of over 7,000 pilgrims, including 465 Iranians.
The incident marked the worst ever tragedy during Hajj.
In a message on the occasion earlier on Monday, Ayatollah Khamenei strongly slammed “murderous” Saudi rulers for refusing to allow an international probe into last year’s deadly Mina crush, urging Muslims to “correctly understand their (Saudis’) blasphemous, faithless, dependent and materialistic nature".
“Several thousand families from different countries lost their loved ones and their nations were bereaved. From the Islamic Republic, close to five hundred people were among the martyrs. The hearts of their families are still broken and bereaved and our people remain grief-stricken and angry," the Leader said.
“Instead of apology and remorse and judicial prosecution of those who were directly at fault in that horrifying event, Saudi rulers- with utmost shamelessness and insolence- refused to allow the formation of an international Islamic fact-finding committee.”
Ayatollah Khamenei further stressed, "The world of Islam, including Muslim governments and peoples, must familiarize themselves with the Saudi rulers and correctly understand their blasphemous, faithless, dependent and materialistic nature. They must not let those rulers escape responsibility for the crimes they have caused throughout the world of Islam."
