Chairman of Islamic Human Rights Commission has warned of Islamophobia as an outcome of media and political activities as well as a means for controlling minds of the world people.
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Masoud Shajareh, chairman of IHRC, in an exclusive interview with Taqrib News Agency (TNA) related on the role of European states in instigating the Islamophobic ambiance in the bloc stressing that spread of Islamophobia is not an incident because fear is a fundamental emotion while what the present world is facing is spread of hatred against Muslims which is politically-motivated.
He called the media as the key source of hate speech that constantly feed the society with hatred leading to Islamophobia and abuse of all people even non-Muslims who resemble Muslims.
Shajareh condemned the states and media for efforts to otherize the Muslims, to introduce Muslims as a separate part of the society, same strategy pursued by Nazis, by Yugoslavia against Bosnian Muslims and now against Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.
London-based university professor added,” In this system, politicians endeavor to fulfill their intentions by discriminating and dividing the people.”
He noted that the governments misuse Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate speech to pass bills and said,” In case of those laws which cannot be normally passed, the politicians pass a certain bill first against the Muslims and then generalize that to involve the entire nation.”
He referred to a recent survey based on the Christian population of the region composing less than 50 per cent of the demographic combination in the UK and Wales in comparison with the increasing population of Muslims, Hindus and followers of other religions and warned,” Governments are using the same pretext to create Islamophobia.”
Masoud Shajareh defined Islamophobia as a means for the states and media to control people’s mind and mentioned an instance where a woman regrated her misbehavior with a pregnant Muslim woman after attacking her on subway adding,” This illustrates that in an ambiance inundated with hatred, people behave in a way they would not in normal condition.”
Chairman of the IHRC, in another part of his remarks, related on the reasons why violation of Muslim rights is ignored by the international human rights organizations and criticized lack of knowledge, facilities and expertise in all human rights organizations.
According to the human rights expert the United Nations (UN) itself is plagued with hatred and should not be counted as a “healthy” organization.
He touched upon France, Austria and other European countries where Islamic hijab is banned at schools, universities and offices and reiterated,” No body mentions violation of freedom for women in these countries and we do not have even a legal organization to refer such cases to the court.”
Masoud Shajareh condemned the hypocritical stance of the British Prime Minister in regards to the riots in Iran and those in UK and said,” It is clear to all people that no state is ignorant to the violence which leads to illegal measures since maintaining security is a responsibility of the ruling system in all countries.”
He also referred to the 24-hour courts in the UK where the sessions were held round the clock in order to send people to jail and laws based on which a person would be jailed only for holding a stone in his hand and not even throwing the or six-year jail terms only for holding a Molotov Cocktail.
He expressed regret that such instances are not revealed to the people or some authorities and said,” People have the right to protest and hold demonstration though those leading to clashes are contained with worse crackdown, but people are not informed due to an information vacuum.”
Masoud Shajareh is a university lecturer of international relations. Based in London he is the chairman of Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), a non-government rights organization which has consultative status with the United Nations (UN) since 2007.
