Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Pakistan’s initiatives at the international level for creation of awareness about Islamophobia were aimed at building mutual understanding and promoting inter-faith harmony. Prime Minister underscored the imperative of Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) collective efforts to project the true image of Islam and its message of peace and tolerance. The Prime Minister met Islamabad-based ambassadors of the member countries of the OIC to discuss combating Islamophobia and promoting inter-faith harmony. The Prime Minister briefed the envoys on Pakistan’s efforts to create awareness about Islamophobia at the international level and the need to collectively address the phenomenon. According to Prime Minster, falsely associating Islam with radicalism and terrorism was leading to the marginalization of Muslims. The Prime Minister stressed that the vilification of Islamic precepts and religious personalities, wrongly justified under the attire of the right to freedom of expression, hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims around the globe. Prime Minister Imran Khan urged the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to work together for making the international community understand the deep-rooted love and reverence of all Muslims for the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) and the Holy Quran. There had been a series of ill-motivated incidents against Muslims aimed at hurting their religious beliefs through targeting their religion or religious personalities particularly in Europe during the past. These incidents largely disturbed the Muslims across the world. The Muslims attaches high love and respects to their religion and never accept the disgrace of their religion or religious personalities and always expressed their condemnation to those acts. However, feeling happy by means of hurting other is not a right but a sense of viciousness and chauvinism which must be denounced by all civilized societies across the globe. Presently, some right-wing political parties and groups had tried to exploit the general unawareness and fear of Islam in their societies for electoral gains. A recently published UN report has highlighted the triple level of discrimination being faced by the Muslim women in some western societies. The UN Secretary General has also admitted the growing anti-Muslim bigotry and rebirth of ethno-nationalism, neo-Nazism, Stigma and hate speech targeting vulnerable populations including Muslim in the world.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and other Muslim leaders including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammad have been the leading international voices in raising awareness on the grave consequences of rising systematic Islamophobia at international level. This problem is equally affecting all Muslims of the world and their power lies in their unity.
