UN Women Liaison: Overuse of ‘Islamophobe’ Is Harmful

UN Women Liaison Zainab Khan said that dubbing anyone who ties a “theological component” to “radical ideologies” within the Muslim world an Islamophobe undermines progress and on Saturday’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine” on the Fox News Channel.

“There’s a deep ostracization of reformer — reformist Muslims, progressive Muslims speaking out because there is a deep fear. There’s a lot of backlash that’s associated with it. The minute you tie the theological component to the radical ideologies that do exist there, you’re immediately labeled as an Islamophobe, and this cuts the dialogue from any sort of progressive movement that can be done, and we’ve seen this happen, even when we’re seeing continuous human rights violations with women, girls, children, time and time again, and the term Islamophobia is always thrown the minute you begin to question — the minute you begin to ask why, why, what is the justification? And a lot of times the justification is theological, and it has been there. This isn’t anything new. These — these laws have been codified for centuries” she stated.

Khan also was critical of the response of the UN, declaring “I think it’s — unfortunately a lot of times with the UN, there’s continuous reports of human rights violations before some sort of action item is taken into place. And I’ve seen this quite a bit, and my hopes are that I’m able to have some sort of an influence, and that we’re able to act up upon the human right violations that are continuously occurring, especially under the name of religion, or culture and what ISIS has been doing.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett