New York: Maldives has called out propaganda against India at the virtual Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meet at United Nations. In the meet, Pakistan reportedly made attempts to push its narrative of rising Islamophobia in India into the agenda. However, Maldives thwarted the move and said: "Isolated statements by motivated people and disinformation campaigns on social media should not be construed as representative of the feelings of 1.3 billion".
Maldives Permanent representative to the United Nations, Thilmeeza Hussain, minced no words and said alleging Islamophobia in the context of India would be factually incorrect. "Let me state that singling out India, the largest democracy in the world and multi-cultural society and home to over 200 million Muslims, alleging Islamophobia would be factually incorrect," she said.
"It would be detrimental to the religious harmony in the South Asian region. Islam has existed in India for centuries and it is the second-largest religion in India, with 14.2% of the country's population," she added. Of late, several Pakistan-based social media handles have been peddling lies to project India as "no place" for Muslims and claiming rise of Islamophobia in the country. India sees it as an attempt by Pakistan to create a wedge between India and the Arab World. Some Pakistan-based twitter handles even impersonated big personalities of the Arab world to run anti-India propaganda.
Thilmeeza Hussain further said: "The world has seen an alarming rise in the culture of hatred, prejudice and racism. Violence has been exploited as a tool to promote political and other ideologies/agendas. The Maldives stands firmly against such actions anywhere in the world, including Islamophobia, xenophobia or any form of violence to promote political or any other agenda. Maldives cannot support any action within the OIC that singles-out or targets India," she added.
