OIC Secretary General The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, called on the OIC Member States to assume an essential role in dealing with the phenomenon of Islamophobia, pointing out that the phenomenon of hostility against Islam has entered into a third phase, which the OIC General Secretariat alone cannot deal with. Ihsanoglu said this in his speech at the 35th session of Islamic Commission for Economic, Cultural and Social Affairs (ICECS) on Monday, 18 June 2012 and which is preparatory to the forthcoming session of the Council of Foreign Ministers to be held in Djibouti. Ihsanoglu noted that Islamophobia has moved to the stage where it is exploited in election campaigns in Europe and resulted in the phenomenon of cartoons depicting the Prophet peace be upon him and then moved to a second phase in which media distort the Islamic faith and its symbols, in order to clamp down on Muslim communities in Europe. He added that the OIC General Secretariat alone cannot face up such shift in hating Islam or interfere in the sovereign affairs of European countries some of which were not involved in this phenomenon. He called on the Member States to take advantage of their bilateral relations with many European countries in order to minimize or eradicate this phenomenon. The Secretary General added that the OIC does now have a say worldwide and has a large voting group, noting that adoption of draft resolutions that affect the Muslim world are subject to approval by the OIC therefore moving that Organization to a new era where it became a strategic partner for the United Nations, as described by the UN Secretary General. Worth noting that the an emergency meeting will be held by the OIC Executive Committee at the level of Foreign Ministers on 24 June 2012 to discuss the situation in Syria, Sudan in addition to the file of Palestinian prisoners, settlements, and issues of the African Sahel region.
