The world's Muslim countries warned Thursday that an “alarming” rise in anti-Islamic insults and attacks in the West has become a threat to international security. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called on Europe and America to take stronger measures against ‘Islamophobia' in a report prepared for a summit of the group's 57 members in Dakar Thursday and Friday. The report by a special OCI monitoring group said the organization was struggling to get the West to understand that Islamophobia “has dangerous implications on global peace and security” and to convince Western powers to do more. Islamic leaders have long warned that perceptions linking Muslims to terrorism, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, would make Muslims more radical. OIC leaders have expressed renewed concern following events such as the publication in Denmark of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) and a plan by the Dutch far-right wing MP Geert Wilders to release a film calling the Holy Qur'an “fascist.” The monitoring group called on Europe and North America to do more, through laws and social action, to protect Muslims from threats and discrimination and prevent insults against Islam's religious symbols. Meanwhile, OIC foreign ministers agreed changes to the charter of the Muslim world's main representative body, officials said. Sheikh Tidiane Gadio, foreign minister of Senegal, host of this week's OIC summit, told a press conference “we have concluded an historic act” with the consensus on a revised charter after two years of debate within the 57-member body. Gadio said there was a “99.99 percent chance” that the changes would be formally approved by OIC leaders at their summit Thursday and Friday. He said the points revised included criteria for membership or observer status of the OIC, modernizing its institutions and giving a new definition for self-determination. The current self-determination declaration has caused problems for countries such as Morocco which is fighting a rebellion in Western Sahara. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the OIC secretary general, emphasized that the current charter has been used since 1972, three years after the group was founded. It has grown from 24 members to 57 and Ihsanoglu said “the OIC is not what it was in 1972 and the world we are living in today is no longer the bipolar Cold War.” Former presidents and other political leaders and scholars and legal experts took part in a panel that recommended changes to the charter. Gadio said foreign ministers also agreed to strengthen an Islamic solidarity fund launched in May last year, create an anti-poverty fund and a program to aid African nations, and to seek debt eradication for OIC members. __
