The IHRC wishes to highlight continuing discrimination against minorities in Canada,
France, UK, USA and Netherlands.
25 November 2014
Statement to the UN Forum on Minority Issues
Individual Statement- Islamic Human Rights Commission
IHRC urges the UN HRC to ensure that minority protection concerns extend to minorities in
all countries and not just non-Western jurisdictions. Otherisation of out-groups in these
settings is not just a domestic issue, resulting in hate crimes and other acts of hatred. Recent
years have provided ample evidence that demonisation and exclusion by western
governments also helps them to legitimise external illegal interventions including war, war
crimes and other atrocity crimes.
CANADA
, Canada's Muslims suffer doubly from racial and religious discrimination with the latter
increasingly overtaking the former. Nearly two-thirds of Muslim respondents to our recently
published 2014 hate crime survey had seen policies or practices at work, school or business
that excluded or negatively affected Muslim people. Over a third had experienced job
discrimination based on religion while 67% said they believed that Canadian politicians
condoned discriminatory acts against Muslims. One of the most disturbing consequences of
Islamophobic social attitudes and practices is that they contribute to silencing, marginalising or
excluding Muslims if they are seen as not quite belonging or if they always have to justify and
explain themselves in ways which other Canadians are not expected to do. Such experiences
can only take place in an environment that not only tolerates hate crime but creates and
reinforces it. Some 9 out of 10 Canadian Muslims in our survey had seen some form of
negative or insulting stereotypes of Muslims in the media and nearly three-quarters had seen
policies that negatively impact their community.
USA