Ayatollah Khamenei’s letter to youth in West

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei wrote an open letter following a terrorist attack in Paris, addressing the youth of Europe and North America.

The face of violence was laid bare once again on November 13, 2015, this time in Paris, France. Daesh sympathizers perpetrated a horrendous crime, not in the Middle East, but in the heart of Europe, killing and injuring more than a 100 people. The Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei's letter, his second in the past year to the youth in the West, called on them not to allow the brutality of Daesh to cloud their perception of Islam.

In the first letter published on the Leader's website and Twitter account on January 22, Ayatollah Khamenei asked Western youths not to judge Islam based on the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, again in Paris. The Leader said terrorism is “our common worry” and that the horror and grief  that had stricken the people of France and other Western countries, were only an example of what the people of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan have been going through for years now.

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The outrage expressed by the Westerners over the Paris attacks came only a day after two explosions rocked the Lebanese city of Burj el-Barajneh and left at least 43 people dead. But those deadly explosions did not receive the kind of attention the Paris attacks did from the Western media and officials. And that is why the Leader lashed out in his letter at Western states for discriminating between the murders of Muslims and non-Muslims. It was the US and its allies’ support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda over the years that allowed such militant groups to thrive.

On that topic, Ayatollah Khamenei wrote, “Today, there are very few people who are uninformed about the role of the United States of America in creating, nurturing and arming al-Qaeda…”. Ayatollah Khamenei also called on the Western youth to avoid hasty actions that force the Muslim communities in those countries to live in fear and isolation, because such circumstances would not solve any problems, rather, they would only complicate the issues.

“In my opinion, the first step in creating peace and security is reforming this violent mentality. As long as double standards dominate Western policies, as long as terrorism is divided into 'good' and 'bad' by its powerful backers, and as long as government interests take precedence over human values and ethics, the roots of violence should not be sought anywhere else,” Ayatollah Khamenei noted. 

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