President Irfaan Ali during a virtual address to the Family Summit hosted by the TARIC Islamic Centre of Ontario, Canada last Friday, called for an end to Islamophobia in the society. In his address the President said: “Islamophobia is a social disease. It fosters hatred, prejudice, bias and discrimination against persons on the basis of their identification or perceived identification as Muslims.” He went further to expound on how Islamophobia impacts National Unity negatively by saying, “Islamophobia is disruptive to social cohesion and social harmony. As such, Islamophobia also represents a potent threat to multiculturalism.”
However, the President is being accused of hypocrisy by a number of people on social media. Persons said the President should back up his words and confront the scorn of Islamophobia head-on in his own party by firing his Minister of Local Government Nigel Dharamlall for his distasteful statement towards a Muslim Member of Parliament recently. During the National Budget considerations two weeks ago and while at the microphone, Minister Dharamlall told the Opposition MP that she needs a “dildo”. The MP’s hijab was also the subject of ridicule by the Minister.
The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) released a statement saying that the Minister’s remarks constitutes sexual harassment of both the MP in question and indirectly of all female MPs who had to sit and listen to such degrading statement. The statement was also met with strong condemnation from the women and Gender Equality Commission, Help and Shelter, A New and United Guyana and the APNU+AFC Coalition, all calling for Dharamlall to be removed from his position as a Government Minister and MP.
“The President is saying one thing, but doing something else. His double talk will not fly with the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau; Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford or the Mayor of Toronto John Tory, all of whom addressed the summit,” read one post by Allison Simon. Another by Ryan Shaw, stated, “Unfortunately, the Minister’s behavior has not been condemned by the President nor the Speaker of the National Assembly. Rather it was described by the Speaker Manzoor Nadir as “getting too personal”.”
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