Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Friday said he considered what he described as the integration of Islamophobia into the state policy of numerous Western countries as "deplorable."
"It is deplorable that today, Islamophobia has become integrated into the state policies of numerous Western countries that consider themselves democratic. These countries account for 80% of all the manifestations of Islamophobia that occurred around the world in the last year," Aliyev said in an address to the Embracing Diversity: Tackling Islamophobia in 2024 international conference held in Baku.
Expressing that the trend of Islamophobia across the world is regrettably on the rise, Aliyev said they are witnessing the portrayal of Islam as a "potential threat" and open hatred against Muslims becoming "increasingly widespread."
Aliyev said that Islamophobia has been promoted in some European countries as an "official ideology," while the burning of the Quran and the publishing of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad are presented as "freedom of speech."
"France, along with its traditional neocolonialism policy, is pursuing a policy of open pressure and discrimination, staging various Islamophobic campaigns. Legislative acts and political decisions that exclusively target Muslims, limiting their rights and freedoms, are often disguised as secularism. In this country, mosques, Muslim community centers and cemeteries are desecrated in one way or another, and Muslim citizens endure oppression," he further said.
Aliyev also argued that the governments of the countries concerned are inflaming Islamophobic sentiments and encouraging the persecution of Muslims rather than fighting against these manifestations that "insult the feelings of the Muslims and holding the perpetrators accountable."
He went on to say that certain Western institutions have also been engaging in anti-Islamic activities, with the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe becoming platforms that "promote Islamophobia and pursue policies based on this ideology."
"The present negative trend is also evident in the operations of some global media entities. They deliberately target the Islamic faith and Islamic culture, distort the true essence of Islam, try to equate it with terrorism and smear it. We strongly condemn these trends that increasingly aim to tarnish our religion. Looking at a world map, we can see that Muslims are the ones that suffer from terrorism the most," he added.
