Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are arriving in Saudi Arabia to participate in the annual hajj pilgrimage, which starts later this week.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, meanwhile, is calling on the Muslim world to “punish” Saudi Arabia following last year’s hajj crush and stampede that killed over 2,400 people.
Iranian pilgrims are not taking part in this year’s hajj, a ritual required of all able-bodied Muslims at least once in their life.
Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia on September 7, 2016. (AP/Nariman El-Mofty)
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quotes Rouhani lambasting Saudi Arabia’s response to the 2015 stampede in Mina by saying pilgrims lost their lives because Saudi authorities acted just as “bystanders rather than rescuing” those caught in the disaster.
He says countries should “punish the government of Saudi Arabia in order to have a real hajj.”
“The government of Saudi Arabia must be held accountable for this incident,” Rouhani says. “Unfortunately, this government has even refrained from a verbal apology to Muslims and Muslim countries.”
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