Yoko Ono says the terrorists stand against everything that she and her husband John Lennon believed in. Photo / AP
Yoko Ono says the terrorists stand against everything that she and her husband John Lennon believed in. Photo / AP
Beatle’s widow says Isis terrorist’s nickname is an affront to peace-loving Lennon.
Nicknaming Isis (Islamic State) terrorist Mohammed Emwazi "Jihadi John" is an insult to the memory of John Lennon, Yoko Ono has said.
Emwazi, who is believed to have killed five hostages, was part of a four-strong British-born terrorist group known as the Beatles by the prisoners that they abducted.
But Ono, 82, said the terrorists stood against everything that she and her husband Lennon believed in.
"That's why it is important for me not to be a couch potato. I have to keep on doing something because the other side will take over - people who are really not understanding what beautiful things we have in this world and want to destroy it.
"And I'm not going to let them destroy John Lennon or the Beatles."
Lennon was an active pacifist, taking part regularly in demonstrations and penning anthems such as Give Peace A Chance and Imagine.
Ono, who held a "Bed-in for Peace" with Lennon in Amsterdam and Montreal in 1969 and co-designed the "War Is Over! If You Want It" billboard campaign the same year, said she still believed world peace can be achieved.
"I think you can be cynical about these things," she said. "It's going to work although it might take some time. I don't like to use the word 'optimistic', because that sounds like it's not really true, but I think we're actually on the road to world peace."
Emwazi is believed to have travelled to Syria, where he joined Isis, in 2012. He had moved to London from Iraq with his family in 1994 and was educated at St Mary Magdalene C of E primary school in Maida Vale and the University of Westminster.
He was first shown in a video last August in which he appeared to kill the American journalist James Foley. He is also thought to be the masked terrorist responsible for the murders of US journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and American hostage Peter Kassig.
Although it was thought that Emwazi had been killed, it has emerged that he is living in an Isis stronghold in the Syrian city of Raqqa. This year he posted online a picture of himself holding the severed head of a regime soldier, with the words: "Chillin' with my homie, or what's left of him".
Ringo Starr has also expressed his disgust at the use of his former band's name, saying: "It's bulls***. What they are doing out there is against everything The Beatles stood for."
He told the Evening Standard: "If we stood for anything, we never stood for that. The four of us absolutely stood for peace and love. But we are not in control."
