PAL Commission’s Director of Legal and Diplomatic Affairs was invited to speak at a two-day international workshop in Istanbul by the Women and Democracy Association (KADEM) of Türkiye. The workshop brought together a diverse group of academics to examine the biases that Muslim women face across political, social, and cultural spheres.

Opening her statement, “Gaza is the target of Islamophobes,” the Director situated the ongoing atrocities in Gaza within the broader context of systemic Islamophobia. She stressed that the anti-Muslim narratives and discriminatory structures operating globally have culminated in Gaza paying the highest price. She underlined how Islamophobia directly functions as a global system that transcends borders or specificity, thereby working to reinforce violence against Muslims in diverse contexts.

Drawing on her extensive legal and advocacy experience, she highlighted that Muslim women have become the most unprotected targets of this vitriol, urging the international community to seize this moment to prevent such violence from becoming a continuous pattern. “The present tragedy must be used not only to ensure that it is never repeated,” she noted,“but also to build collective protections for Muslims worldwide.”

PAL Commission welcomed KADEM’s initiative in convening this timely and crucial programme, underscoring the importance of collaborative efforts in challenging Islamophobia systematically and amplifying Muslim women’s voices to uplift, protect and serve justice in the face of occupation, state violence, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Muslim communities. “The present moment must not pass us by,” the Commission’s Director  stated. “We must use it not only to ensure that the tragedy unfolding in Gaza is never repeated, but also to secure lasting protections for Muslims everywhere, especially Muslim women whose visibility has made them prime targets of violence and discrimination.”