Social Democratic Students in Finland – SONK, Social Democratic Youth of Finland – SDY and Social Democratic Students of Sweden – SSF are grieving on behalf of the victims of the Garissa University terrorist attack in Kenya. At least 148 people, mostly students, were killed in an assault by al-Shabab militants at an university in north-eastern Kenya last Thursday 2nd of April 2015. al-Shabab is a jihadist terrorist group based in Somalia.

Both Christians and Muslims have denounced the attack. When Charlie Hebdo magazine was attacked in January, the whole world grieved. Now the media seems awfully quiet.

– We’re shocked with the awful mass-murders in Garissa. But what makes us even more enraged is the lack of Western media coverage on the assaults. We are wondering, where is ourworld leader summit for mourning the 150 Kenyan students? Do we only care about terror that happens in our backyard?

When Charlie Hebdo was attacked, a right-wing populist outburst against all muslims emerged. A whole religion was stigmatized because of its extremist wing. This is outrageous and we must make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. Peace and democracy are values that we need to cherish.

– In times of terror we must remain united. There’s no “us” and “them”. There’s just us, the human kind. We have to fight against terrorism but also remember not to judge whole religion by it’s extremists.

 

More information:

Hanna Huumonen
President
Social Democratic Students in Finland – SONK
puheenjohtaja@sonk.fi
045-1129299

Joona Räsänen
President
Social Democratic Youth of Finland – SDY

Talla Alkurdi
President
Social Democratic Students of Sweden – SSF