The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) denounced the criminal attack in the southern French city of Nice on Thursday, which claimed lives of and caused injuries to many innocent people including children. The OIC considered this barbaric act as shocking and brutal. The OIC Secretary General, Iyad Ameen Madani, expressed profound distress at this atrocious crime, which according to initial investigations have the marks of a terrorist act. Madani underlined that terrorism has no religion, nationality, or race; and that the perpetrator and those behind him are an affront to humanity and all moral and human values, and called for bringing them to justice. He reaffirmed the OIC 's solidarity and support to France and the French people in this painful circumstance. Madani added that such acts of terror can only play to the hands of the political forces of the extreme right; to Islamophobic voices that are ever ready to frame Islam and its two billion adherents; and to advocates of the prescription of brutal military and security measures that create in their aftermath, more displacement, hate and conflicts. Madani reiterated the OIC's firm, consistent and principled stand condemning all forms of crimes, radicalism, violence and terrorism. He emphasized the need to consolidate international efforts in the fight against these phenomena; and for that effort to go beyond security and military actions and address political, social economic, cultural and humanitarian context; as well as the conditions of disinheritance, despair and exploitation. Madani conveyed his deepest sympathies to the families of the victims as well as the best wishes for the earliest recover of the wounded.
