‘Anti-Shia’ bomb threats force organisers in Malaysia to cancel seminar about ending Muslim sectarianism

The event was focused on the Amman Message, a declaration by Muslim leaders worldwide to recognise all schools of Islam

An online ‘anti-Shia’ movement urged followers to ‘make a bomb and throw it’ at the event, leading organisers to cancel the seminar in the country, where a vast majority of Muslims belong to the Sunni sect

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The Amman Message ‘cancelled’ poster was posted on the Facebook page of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies Malaysia. Photo: Facebook/IAIS

Published: 9:37am, 12 Jul 2019Updated: 2:32pm, 12 Jul 2019

Organisers of a seminar on the Amman Message – a declaration by Muslim leaders around the world to end sectarianism in Islam – have called off the event in Malaysia after receiving bomb threats by supporters of an “anti-Shia” movement.

The threat exposes the rising militancy against the Shia minority in multicultural Malaysia that has inspired fear among that segment of the community.

The seminar was expected to take place in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.

The Amman Message, initiated by Jordan’s King Abdullah II in 2004, recognises the validity of all eight Islamic schools, including Sunni and Shia, the two largest denominations in the Muslim world.

For them, this [seminar] is a provocative act as Malaysia is a Sunni state

Ahmad El-Muhammady, lecturer

A Facebook page, called Movement To Eliminate Shia, on July 6 shared a message encouraging its supporters to “make a bomb and throw it at the event”, leading the organisers to cancel the seminar.