A new letter signed by 200 people, including several members of the Muslim community, calls for the departure of Amira Elghawaby and the abolition of her post as federal envoy for the fight against Islamophobia.
The president of the Rassemblement pour la laïcité (RPL), Nadia El-Mabrouk, declared that this demand, The duty obtained a copy, was forwarded Monday morning to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
According to the signatories, the apologies of Mme Elghawaby, following remarks judging that Quebecers are mainly Islamophobic, are insufficient.
“After showing so many prejudices against Quebecers, Ms.me Elghawaby simply does not have the moral authority to hold such a position, they write. If it is a question of building bridges and pursuing a constructive dialogue, it is still necessary to be able to inspire confidence. However, his belated excuses and under high political pressure seem more constrained than spontaneous. »
As for his position, they equate the notion of combating Islamophobia with a restriction on freedom of expression.
In an interview at DutyMonday, Mme El-Mabrouk explained that Islamophobia is a militant term that can be used to prevent any criticism of the Muslim religion.
“It’s a concept that causes death across the world, that encourages censorship and self-censorship of any criticism of fundamentalist Islam and the veiling of women,” she said.
Electoral patronage
Mme El-Mabrouk believes that the laws currently in force are sufficient to prevent hate speech against the Muslim religion, which makes the post of special representative for the fight against Islamophobia created by Mr. Trudeau unnecessary.
“There is no point in multiplying the posts for hatred against Muslims, hatred against Christians, hatred against Chinese, hatred against Aboriginal people,” she said.
Mme El-Mabrouk considers that this latest initiative by Mr. Trudeau is motivated by electoral clientelism towards Muslims.
“It’s an electoral political interest, I don’t see anything else,” she said.
In an opinion piece published in 2019 in the daily ottawa citizenMme Elghawaby deplored the adoption of the Act respecting the secularism of the State by the government of François Legault. “Unfortunately, the majority of Quebecers seem to be driven not by the rule of law, but by anti-Muslim sentiment,” she wrote in a text co-signed with Bernie Farber.
Muslim signatories
The letter sent Monday to Mr. Trudeau is notably signed by the professor emeritus at the Faculty of Law of the University of Montreal, Guy Rocher, as well as by Ensaf Haidar, an activist for secularism and wife of Raïf Badawi, a Saudi blogger who has was imprisoned by the regime in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
According to Mme El-Mabrouk, about half of the signatories of the letter are Muslims living in Quebec or Canada.
“Amira Elghawaby is far from bringing together even the Muslim community,” she says.
Although some representatives of the Muslim community have spoken in favor of his appointment, including representatives of the Quebec City mosque, Ms.me El-Mabrouk stresses that this appointment is not unanimous.
“We don’t have the same vision of Islam, they represent a fundamentalist Islam that doesn’t represent us. We are full of Muslims who are quite satisfied to live in a state of law, liberal, where we allow both freedom of worship and also the freedom to criticize religions. »
Mme El-Mabrouk is shocked to see representatives of the Muslim community attacking the Quebec provisions put in place by the government for secularism.
“They represent conservative Muslims; we are progressive Muslims,” she said.
Before the RPL, the Mouvement laïque québécois (MLQ) had already sent Mr. Trudeau a letter on Sunday demanding the dismissal of Ms.me Elghawaby and the abolition of his post.
The president of the MLQ, Daniel Baril, is one of the signatories of the letter from the RPL.