Although the government has the discretion to decide when to engage in strategic surveillance, this cannot be an unfettered discretion and the public needs to know the circumstances that will trigger such surveillance (John McCann/M&G)
Local academic, Professor Farid Esack, said he was “sickened” by the expectation that he has to condemn those involved in the attacks in Paris.
“I am not praying for Paris; I am not condemning anyone. Why the hell should I? I had nothing to do with it,” Esack, who is from the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for the Study of Democracy, said in a Facebook post.
“I am sickened by the perpetual expectations to condemn. I walk away from your shitty racist and Islamophobic expectations that whenever your chickens come home to roost then I must feign horror.
“Stop supporting and funding terror outfits, get out of other people’s lands and continents, stop outlawing peaceful resistance such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, to occupations, abandon your cultural imperialism, destroy your arms industry that provides the weapons that kill hundreds of thousands of others every year.
“The logic is quite simple: When you eat, it’s stupid to expect that no shit will ever come out from your body. Yes, I feel sorry for the victims on whom the shit falls. But, bloody hell, own it; it’s yours!” he said.
Esack told News24 that he was speaking in his post to Western powers that had waged war on Muslim countries and that supported the invasion of Muslim countries.
Gunmen and suicide bombers launched a series of attacks on Friday at several locations in Paris, killing at least 132 people.
The simultaneous attacks took place at some of the French capital’s most popular night-spots, including a sold-out concert hall, at restaurants and bars and outside France’s national stadium.
The self-styled Islamic State has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks. – News24