Dr. Ahmed Shaheed Faces Backlash for Pro-Israel Stance

Former foreign minister and UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief. Ahmed Shahid has come under scrutiny for his pro-Israel remarks.

Shahid, a UN special envoy for religious freedom, said in a tweet that he was opposed to anti-Jewish racism and stood by the People of Israel. His bias to be blind to one side of the issue has raised serious questions regarding his intentions.

In a video released by an Israeli group fighting an anti-Semitism ideology, Shahid said Hamas, which rules Gaza, was a "terrorist" and that the deaths of thousands of Israelis were "saddening". "We pray for the safety and security of the detained Israelis," Shahid said in a the video.

As the UN rapporteur his task is to see the implementations by the states of what is called the 1981 UN declaration on the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion. In his Report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of religion or belief: point 51, b (vii) states that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

The Maldivian community has expressed their dissatisfaction and disappointment with his narrative that harms innocent children, women, older people, and differently-abled persons who non-Jews, pushed into an open-air concentration camp, also known as Gaza or the racism faced by the local Palestinians in West Bank. Shahid's message did not raise concerns about the fact that Israelis are killing dozens of innocent Palestinians literally every day.