More than 200 people have sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, in which they demand the departure of Amira Elghawaby and the abolition of her position.
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This open letter brings together a large number of signatories from Muslim traditions or faiths in Canada, including the president of the Rassemblement pour la laïcité (RPL), Nadia El-Mabrouk, as well as the activist Ensaf Haidar, the actress Nabila Ben Youssef, or even the activist for secularism Leila Bensalem and the co-spokesperson of the Parti Québécois in matters of diversity, metropolis and transport, Fogaing Stephan.
Many professors, historians, philosophers and lawyers are also among the signatories.
They believe that Amira Elghawaby, after writing that Quebecers “seem to be influenced by anti-Muslim sentiment” in a column in 2019, “simply does not have the moral authority to hold such a position”.
“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, ”we can read in particular in the letter.
According to them, the very post of special representative in charge of the fight against Islamophobia does not have to exist, because it is “carrying no constructive dialogue” and its wording is “very questionable”.
“If the post for the fight against anti-Semitism only targets racism, Islamophobia is, for its part, a more militant term, hackneyed, with vague outlines, which confuses in its use respect for the Muslim person with the absolute respect for the precepts of Islam. This is the concept that the most fundamentalist Islamist regimes and activists around the world are trying to get across to make any “offense” to the Muslim religion seem like a crime. This is what earned the writer Salman Rushdie the fatwa issued by the Iranian regime which orders all Muslims, wherever they are, to kill them, and which was recently implemented. This is what also earned the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo to have been assassinated.
The authors of the letter also believe that this appointment risks aggravating tensions and generating suspicion and anger towards Muslims.
Recall that the Trudeau government appointed, on January 26, Ms. Elghawaby to the position of special representative in charge of the fight against Islamophobia.