Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in a letter to the western youth urged them to look at Islam firsthand rather than believing prejudiced views that seek to spread Islamophobia.
Ayatollah Khamenei recalled that there exists a flood of "misinformation" about Islam in the West and asked the young people in Europe "to get a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion."
"Logic requires that you understand the nature and essence of what they are frightening you about and want you to keep away from," he noted, and said the recent events in France that led to the killing of 17 people earlier this month had prompted him to write the letter "because they were the future of their nations."
Iran denounced the shooting at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo but also condemned as "provocative" its publication last week of a new cartoon of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Ayatollah Khamenei urged the people to question why the "old policy of spreading fear and hatred has targeted Islam" with such intensity.
"Many attempts have been made in the past two decades and since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great religion in the seat of a terrible enemy. The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred and its use unfortunately has a long record in the political history of the West," the Leader said.
"Don't allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam."
He urged the western youth to try and find out about Islam from authentic sources. "At least know what they are frightening you about!" he wrote.
