 Dear viewers, assalamu alaikum. Thank you for joining us. I'm Ali Jassim and this is current events today on current events We will be discussing the International Day of Shiite rights and my guest will be Mustafa Akwand the head of the Washington DC based organization Shiite rights watch Since the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon me the catastrophe of Saqifah the Shiite of the household Peace be upon them have been disregarded Persecuted and murdered for their loyalty doctrines and religious practices from the attack on the house of Fatima the Zara Peace be upon her to the tragedy of Karbala and beyond all But one of our divinely appointed leaders have been murdered by poison or the sword Until today Shiites remain a persecuted minority for their attempts to maintain and spread the pristine Islam of the messenger of Allah Muhammad peace be upon him and his appointed deputies between 2012 and 2015 in Pakistan alone It is estimated that at least 1300 Shiites have been martyred and at least nine hundred fifty others injured in the same period 23 Hussaini as there were attacked and the struggle for justice in Bahrain 550 juveniles have been illegally detained and dozens of Shiites have been killed or injured of protests While others have been imprisoned and tortured under the supervision of the Buru Khalifa regime in Saudi Arabia Shiites continue to be persecuted and so retargeted structural economic oppression at the hands of the illegitimate Saudi monarchy It is the same monarchy that continues to detain the prisoner of conscience Sheikh Nimr Who is awaiting execution for persistently and courageously defending the rights and aspirations of Shiites around the country? Meanwhile Shiites in other areas of the world from Malaysia to Gaza are also criminalized simply for practicing true Islam Or for attempting to publicly mourn the martyrdom of our master of martyrs Muhammad Hussain peace be upon him In fact, even in certain Shiite majority countries mourning practices meant to honor and Hussain peace be upon him Have been banned and scholars are regularly imprisoned and tortured by their supposed co-religionists and in Egypt The situation is no better their Shiites are banned from constructing their own mosques and Islamic centers And are the subject of attacks by Wahhabi terrorists who in 2013 Shamelessly murdered the outspoken Sheikh Hassan Shahate as well as for others Needless to say in Iraq and Syria Shiites have suffered heavily as a result of the Satanic state Who attack our shrines our honor our women and our lives as if the Shiites of Iraq did not suffer badly enough Under decades of the dictator Saddam Tukriti Now not a week goes by without bombings targeting civilians as Shiite neighborhoods around Iraq on June 12 2014 1700 students were heartlessly Massacred by the Satanic state at Camp Spiker who videotaped their savagery for the entire world to see this gang of thugs And cowards who have sought to intensify the evil of Saqifah have claimed the lives of countless lovers and followers of the Peace be upon them the list of tragedies goes on and on and in truth the followers of the illiterate peace be upon them Have never been left to live in peace what we suffered today is what we have always suffered Yet one organization is trying to change the way the Shiite of the world are treated and is aiming to ensure the recognition Of our rights and dignity that organization is DC based Shiite rights watch Recently a member of the 1700 Spiker martyrs They have campaigned to set aside June 12th as the annual International Day of Shiite rights Shiite rights was established in 2011 according to their website They are the world's first independent organization dedicated to defining and protecting the rights of Shiite Muslims around the world In addition to being a registered non-profit organization in the US It also holds a special consultation status with the United Nations and hopes to draw the world's attention to the plight of Shiites Everywhere and to advocate on their behalf in this episode of current events We will be speaking with the head of Shiite rights watch Mustafa Aqwand We will attempt to address the idea behind the International Day of Shiite rights and the hashtag 612 Shiite day awareness campaign We'll examine the events and programs organized for this past June 12th and ask the question What can others do and how can they support the international campaign for Shiite rights? Also, we'll try to find out more about what Shiite rights watch has planned for the future So without further ado, let's meet our guest Mustafa Aqwand. Salam alaykum Mustafa Insha'Allah you're doing well Welcome to our show Salam alaykum brother Ali. I hope you and your respected viewer are doing well Brother Mustafa, I know we just gave a brief introduction of your organization But can we start off by explaining what exactly is Shiite rights watch? Well, the Shiite rights watch is a non-profit non-governmental organization who is Working on highlighting the violation against the Shiite Muslims all around the world Try to trying to give them respect and the rightful of citizenship in different area and in different countries When did you start and what was your main goal? The organization started in February 14 2011 by the unrest that happened in Bahrain our aim was because the lack of the representation of the Shiite Muslims in media and the organization our aim was to first introduce the Shiite Muslims in right way and Do advocacy raise awareness and issue reports regarding different countries and the violations that's happening in different countries such as Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia Saudi Arabia Bahrain and All the countries that are oppressing the Shiite Muslims As we have heard recently Shiite rights watch received the special position or chair in the united nations Can you please elaborate on that? well one of the Aim of the organization was to reach the united nation and be able to work with the different Special rapporteurs in different countries and raise the voice beyond the united states our headquarters in united states And we're working with different organization here in washington dc And we were trying to reach the european union and different countries in europe and the organization as well So we applied for the organization to be have a special Consultative status in united nation. So give us a better access to the United nation And the special rapporteurs to be able to reach the shia was there and alhamdulillah Couple months ago. We got our eco-selfie status, which is the special consultancy status in united nation Two days ago and currently right now i'm i'm united and geneva working on our side event regarding the Bahrain Now back to our topic. What is exactly hashtag 612 shiai day? Well, we were trying to Proclaim a day for the shia Muslims to represent them and work on different operations that they have Obviously religiously there is a lot of International days religious days that the shia representing such as qadir or ashura But our aim was to represent the shia in the human rights manner and human rights way So 612 was the hashtag that we started the campaign that we started in washington dc and try to Raise the awareness between the ngo's communities that are caring about the situation in Regarding the shia Muslims now that the awareness campaign is initiated. What is the next step? Well a couple things that the couple things that we did with this campaign first Proclaim in the day, which is a 612 and the idea behind this 612 was to Find a day That a sad event happened in regarding the shia Muslims and the largest number of the shia were killed 612 was the day between 612 and 615 which is june 12 through june 15 was the Uh The sad event of a spiker that happened and 1700 shia Muslims were killed by ices So that was the best day to represent the shia and ask different communities to raise this awareness regarding the Spiker and the loss of 1700 people that Nearly is not in media. No one's talking about it. So that was the uh the reason and then with the campaign one of the campaign we did was Uh distributing roses to the communities in washington dc Each day we had two days that we Work on the our campaign each day. There was a 550 roses that were distributed to the to the people in two busiest Place in washington dc And raise awareness. So with the day 612 is the day that this 1700 people were killed but this year we uh, chose to have a Represent a mind a Bahraini minor who are in prison So the roses was tagged with the with the small card that introduced the 612 612 day at the same time raise awareness of the shia who are oppressed in Bahrain What organizations or institutes support this campaign? We reached a lot of activists organizations and the NGOs who we thought that First we wanted to know about this and at the same time we wanted to distribute this Uh, we had five or six organizations who were co-hosting with our Uh with the shia response regarding this. We had the universal muslim association association of america We had the baghi foundation. We had a muslim for peace. We had a free muslim association We had is wf, which is a montry razi foundation in washington dc and the others that Reached us and helped us to Work in this and we had couple european organization like a sentinel, which is a base in ireland and the justice for human rights that helped us to Proceed with this or with this event at the same time we had a lot of activists from britain from us from middle east and Thanks for emomo senti. We three of the english channel who supported this and introduced it to the people What are your expectations from the brothers and sisters around the world? The expectation is for them to Uh participate in this campaign. This is this is not for us to talk about the shia muslims Is the responsibility of every brother and sister in different countries? We have a lot of our families are oppressed in different countries, especially in arabic countries who Are not represented and we in the west we have this opportunity. We have this freedom to talk about these issues So we have to raise awareness. We can participate in the campaigns that is happening We can participate in social media and every time we're sharing we Retweeting or using different type of the media social media that we are using The more we use it the more we introduce this day to the people the more they know about this How can viewers or any of those interested join this campaign? Introducing this campaign. We have If they are living in united states, there is a lot of Legislative that we are introducing one of them is the shia reising legislative that we are introducing and there is two Legislative that is regarding the shia in congress right now that need the support of the brother and sister in united states Or they can use our papers and the documentation that we have And in if they are in western countries, they can participate in that go to their prime minister Go to their congressman and ask them to protect the shia in their countries And if they are in middle east, they can Prepare the videos or they can prepare Prepare the paper that introduce the shia in right way The the lack of knowing of the shia muslim and peacefulness Of the shia muslims is bringing all this operation. So the more people know about the shia The more they know about the beauty of the shia muslims about the peacefulness about not being violence The more we can get the support on Is there any hope of registering this day in the un calendar? We are working on it. There is a lot of process that need to be done There is a lot of introduction that need to be done to get that day Approved of course the more follower we get the more Talking about this in the media happened the more article we submit the more we work in We work in different subject of the social media the more attention we get and the you and know that This is not the only one organization working on it Is the majority of the shia who are the minority in different countries With the majority of operation they can get we get more support and then we get more attention What are shia rights watch plans for the future? With the future we are working in un regarding that. We are working to get more participation from the different NGOs. We are looking to get more Activists to join us regarding this of course for our next year We don't want to talk any about any sadness that is happening any loss of the shia life But at the same time we need to get this attention we to to improve The life of the shia muslims in different countries To get them the rightful of citizenship the rightful of living in their countries Which need a lot of work and we are Working on it in our organization and we have very good NGOs who are working with us to to raise this awareness Do you think such initiatives could help improve the current situations of the shia Muslims around the world? Of course We in the organization we try to be creative to bring new ideas regarding that But of course there is a lot of minorities in the west and in the middle east that are getting their rights They are getting their voice heard. This is what we need right now the shia muslims. They don't have the voice that they need If we put the religious aside and look at it at the humanitarian aspect of it There is a lot of thing that we can do and it is not impossible. It is possible what we have to Put our aim for it. We have to know that we are the peace This is very important. You know, we see a lot of terrorist organizations such as ices and taliban and all these Are going against the humanity the only religion who is not raising the Raising the weapon and fighting others is the shia muslims We always during the different centuries defending our rights. So we have to Step up. We have to talk to the different organization We have to reach the united nation to get the rights that we need and this is not impossible We have we have seen it with the different faith. We have seen it with different minorities in different countries and we can do it Insha'Allah brother Do you have a final message to the world? It is very important for the viewer of imam hussein tv to know This is not the day that we can be silent Of course, we don't want to raise our voice with a weapon with our peace with our work with our effect if we Cooperate to each other if you if we unite as a shia muslims We unite as a shia muslims To let the world know we are together and we can reach that impossible. We can make it possible This is the way we can let the other world know that If if we're looking at the religion, we can introduce our religion if you're looking at the humanitarian way We can introduce that is a lot of work can be done. We are working with a different newspaper We are working with a different organization Anyone who can't support us If they haven't any paper that we can support it with it If there is any volunteer base that they can support us with anything that can support our organization We can reach what we need. This is not our organization is every one organization And this is our responsibility to defend our brothers and sisters Who are getting oppressed look at the pakistan look at afghanistan look at Iraq right now People are joined We can reach the voice We can raise the voice. We can get the support we need but we need to step up Thank you very much brother akhwan Brother and sisters, this concludes today's current events. We hope to see you next time We thank you all for watching and we thank our dear guest most of akhwan for joining us Be sure to join us again on current events. Until next time wassalaamu alaikum marmatullahi wabarakatuh