United Nations Releases Professor Bennoune's Statement on Paris Attacks
In her first official statement as the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Professor Karima Bennoune denounced the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris and appealed to civil societies around the world "to unite in exposing and opposing the fundamentalist ideology motivating such atrocities, as many have done in Muslim majority countries for years, and to support those resisting such fundamentalist assaults on cultural life on the frontlines from West Africa to South Asia and beyond."
"These attacks may constitute a crime against humanity and certainly one which viciously and deliberately targeted sites of arts and leisure where people come together to enjoy their cultural rights," said Bennoune, who was appointed as a UN Special Rapporteur in October 2015.
Bennoune also expressed her concern about other recent terror attacks, including those in Beirut, and emphasized the global equality of victims.
The statement was reported on in an Associated Press article that was widely reprinted in media outlets including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Huffington Post. Included in the Associated Press article were Professor Bennoune's comments on the attackers' cries of "Allahu Akbar" (or "God is great"), which she said ''grossly misuses a religious pronouncement sacred to hundreds of millions of Muslim believers."
Professor Bennoune is an author, lecturer, teacher, and international law scholar as well as the first Arab-American to be honored with the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Section on Minority Groups of the Association of American Law Schools. She recently was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for her book Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight against Muslim Fundamentalism, now available in paperback from W.W. Norton & Company.
United Nations release (English): Paris attacks: "Crime against humanity, crime against culture" - UN expert on cultural rights
United Nations release (French):Attaques à Paris: « Un crime contre l'humanité, un crime contre la culture » dit l'experte des Nations Unies sur les droits culturels