OIC information ministers conclude meeting, call for defying Israeli campaigns
Regional-Iran, Politics, 12/3/1999

The fifth conference of the information ministers of the countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on Thursday concluded their meetings.

In a final statement, the conference released several decisions on implementing a media strategy and a code of media honor, implementing a media plan, problems of financing the Islamic media, alleviating the tariffs of telecommunications applied on the mass media of the Islamic states and producing a documentary film about Holy Jerusalem.

The conference's final statement stressed the importance of investing the mass media in backing the cause of Palestine and confronting what has been allegedly claimed by Israel in having rights in Jerusalem, as well as attempts made to distort the image of Islam and the Islamic shrines.

The conference voiced total solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle to end the Israeli occupation and restore the national rights of the Palestinian people, to establish their own independent state on their own native soil of Palestine, with Jerusalem as a capital.

The conference also condemned attempts made by Israel to Judaize Jerusalem and change its demographic, historical and religious features through pursuing a policy of expanding Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian and other Arab lands.

The conference called on Israel to withdraw from all occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 1967 border line, and the Lebanese occupied territories according to UN resolutions.

The conferees condemned terrorism and all terrorist acts and practices regardless of their sources and objectives. They asserted the distinction between terrorism and people's rights to struggle against occupation and for self-determination.

The conference called for taking the necessary measures to enable the Islamic mass media to unmask terrorist conduct and confront all practices aiming at raising divisions and disorder, noting a need to highlight the sublime principles of Islam which oppose terrorism.

The conference approved a request proposed by Egypt to host the sixth session of the OIC information ministers' meeting to be held in the year 2001.

Meanwhile, Iranian Minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance Ataollah Mohajerani, who is also the chairman of the conference, stressed at the conclusion of the conference's deliberations that, "The conference is considered an advancing step towards rapprochement among the Islamic states and strengthening media cooperation among those states to withstand cultural and media challenges the Islamic world is facing in light of the tremendous development of world technology, informatics and telecommunications."

Previous Stories:
  Egyptian information minister hails joint relations with Iran   (12/2/1999)
  Iranian minister receives Syrian information minister   (12/2/1999)
  Syrian information minister meets with Iranian vice president in Tehran   (12/1/1999)

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