In a letter to the Editor, Tokyo Shimbun of Tokyo, on 21 January, Muslims of All Nationalities in Japan urged the Editor to stop publishing provocative material in the paper. The letter runs inter alia:
“We the Muslims of all nationalities in Japan are demonstrating today in front of your office to protest and express our hurt feelings of shock and anger.
“We were extremely surprised, hurt and severely shocked to see that you published the same cartoon of Charlie Hebdo in your publication of January 14, 2015 against which whole Muslim world was inflamed….
“Please judge the strong sentiments of Muslims about such matters from a historic incident during the supremacy of Ottoman Empire. A French citizen wanted to stage a drama in which our Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him) was going to be vilified. Sultan Abdul Hameed II dressed himself in military attire and called the French ambassador. The ambassador was surprised to see the Sultan in military dress. He realised that Sultan was ready to go to war against France, and lead such a war personally himself, if that drama was not stopped. French ambassador immediately stopped that drama from being staged anywhere to save his country from Ottoman attack. This incident reveals the severity of Muslim sentiment against any kind of vilification attempt against our most loved and respected holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be to him)….
“We strongly condemn Islamic State (Daesh) for taking 2 innocent Japanese as hostages. It is against Islam what they are doing. But please consider one question. Why these merciless, brute and condemnable people suddenly turned towards Japan and became anti-Japanese, while they had no such anti-Japanese feelings until this unfortunate incident? What prompted them to adopt such anti-Islam, inhuman acts against innocent Japanese all of a sudden?
“Therefore we request you to kindly stop publishing such provocative material in your newspaper which may be misused by some mad people among Muslims. After the murder of Professor Iigarashi of Tsukuba University, translator of Salman Rushdie’s condemned book, The Satanic Verses, some years back in Japan, Police had been kindly cooperating with us for last several years to stop all sources of such provocative materials which may instigate some of our mad people to turn to violence and terror activities. In Japan, we are thankful to Japanese Police for stopping the sale of that provocative anti-Islam book, The Satanic Verses, translation in Japanese language, for stopping sale of all such imported clothing which contained Arabic verses of holy Quran, for stopping the sale of shoes made by American company NIKE on which the name ALLAH was written in Arabic.
“…In such a peaceful atmosphere in Japan for the last 50 to 100 years, you have unfortunately started to provocate some Muslims, whom we are trying to stop from violence. We want your cooperation by publishing an apology for what you have done to provocate….”