ISLAMABAD (UNA-OIC) – The unanimous adoption of Tuesday’s landmark resolution by the UN General Assembly proclaiming March 15 as International Day to Combat Islamophobia has set the stage for Pakistan to work, along with OIC partners and the world community, on developing joint strategies aimed at countering the threat posed by the abhorrent phenomenon, according to diplomatic sources.
The resolution comes at a time when Islamophobia is rampant, especially since the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States when some countries began equating Islam with terrorism, a trend that also witnessed proliferation of hate speech against Muslims.
It’s adoption by the 193-member Assembly marked the culmination of years of efforts by a group of OIC countries — Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, Niger and Indonesia — that led to securing the agreement of the Western world in actively combating the growing Islamophobia.
“We are gratified by the active cooperation among Islamic countries which has made it possible to secure the world community’s recognition of the need to combat Islamophobia,” Ambassador Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, who introduced the resolution in the General Assembly, said in an interview with APP correspondent.
The consensus resolution, he said, is “an important milestone in the dedicated endeavour launched by Prime Minister Imran Khan to mobilize an international campaign to counter the endemic prejudice, discrimination, hate and violence against Islam and Muslims in various parts of the world.”
Indeed, Prime Minister Khan was the first to raise the issue of Islamophobia at the U.N. in his maiden 2019 address to the General Assembly, and has repeatedly called for international attention and efforts to address it.
In this regard, according to the sources, Pakistan, in cooperation with the Islamic world and the international community, will take several actions to combat Islamophobia whose manifestations are hate speech, discrimination, and violence against Muslims.
It was pointed out that the 47th session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers, held in Niamey, Niger, in November 2020, unanimously adopted a resolution initiated by Pakistan for the designation of 15 March as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
