Meet Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s First-Ever Anti-Islamophobia Counselor

Montreal:

Canada on Thursday appointed its first special representative to combat Islamophobia, a stance that emerged after several recent attacks on Muslims in the country.

Journalist and activist Amira Elghawaby will fill the position to “act as a champion, advisor, expert and representative to support and strengthen the efforts of the Federal Government in the fight against Islamophobia, systemic racism, racial discrimination and religious intolerance,” said the prime minister. said the cabinet of the minister.

Elghawaby, an active human rights activist, is the communications chief of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and a columnist for the Toronto Star newspaper, having previously worked for public broadcaster CBC for more than a decade.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hailed Elghawaby’s appointment as “an important step in our fight against Islamophobia and hatred in all its forms”.

“Diversity is truly one of Canada’s greatest strengths, but Islamophobia is all too familiar to many Muslims,” ​​he added.

In recent years, a series of deadly attacks have targeted Canada’s Muslim community.

In June 2021, four members of a Muslim family were killed when a man ran over them with his truck in London, Ontario.

Four years earlier, six Muslims died and five were injured in an attack on a mosque in Quebec City.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, Elghawaby listed the names of those killed in the recent attacks, adding: “We must never forget.”

The creation of the new job had been recommended by a national summit on Islamophobia organized by the federal government in June 2021 in response to the attacks.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NewsMadura staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)