The Media Accountability Project  

On March 19, 2025, CJPME media analyst Lynn Naji was published in The Hill Times. She responded to an article written by Laura Ryckewaert titled: “Despite challenging first two years, Canada’s special rep on Islamophobia is undaunted.”

Lynn criticized Quebec’s Bill 21 as an “institutionalized form of discrimination” that targets religious minorities by barring government employees from wearing symbols like the hijab.

She also argued that rather than questioning the legitimacy of Elghawaby’s role as Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, Canadians should question why there is such fierce resistance to addressing Islamophobia in a country that claims to uphold human rights.

The letter to the editor is available to read here.

"This is not an isolated case; it reflects a broader systemic pattern in which activists who expose systemic discrimination are targeted with smear campaigns meant to intimidate and silence them. Yet, despite the backlash, Elghawaby refuses to be silenced. She released The Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combating Islamophobia at a time when acknowledging Islamophobia is met with hostility."

"As a member of a Christian family with close relatives living in northern Lebanon with no ties to Hezbollah, I find it troubling that your article homogenizes all Lebanese communities as aligned with this militant group. This generalization is both inaccurate and fuels an outdated Orientalist view that fails to recognize Lebanon’s complex society."

"The headline and the article offensively use the words of a Wall Street Journal op-ed to refer to Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, as 'America’s Jihad capital,' which is unnecessary and racist."

"This profoundly insulting opinion article does not respect the basic journalistic standards of fairness, accuracy, and balance. To put it simply, it is hate speech covered up as an opinion article."

"Now, by the time these Whittington and Caddell pieces were published, Israel had in this crisis killed more than twice as many Palestinian civilians as Palestinians had killed Israeli civilians. Facts are what they are. Whittington does not reflect them when he exclusively reserves harsh adjectives (“murderous,” “terrorist”) for Palestinians, while treating the Israeli killing of Palestinians in gentler tones."

"But Palestinian grievances against Israel are much greater than Israeli grievances against Palestinians can ever be, even if deaths on the more powerful side are better known."

"That rare exceptional moment in Israel/Palestine, namely, a brief window of time in which more Israelis had been killed by Palestinians than Palestinians had been killed by Israelis, is closed."

"You have run at least twenty articles on the Middle East crisis from this so-called “Wire Service” of yours since October 7, and not one has mentioned the Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians. This is not a news service; it is a source of pro-Israel commentary."

"On Sunday, October 15, observers reeled from the arrival of anti-Palestinian violence in North America: a six-year-old Palestinian child, Wadea Al-Fayoume, was that day stabbed 26 times in Illinois, killed for no reason other than that he was Palestinian. The very next day, you decided to publish an article representing Palestinians only as a hate threat, not, as is more factually the case, as targets of Israeli and overseas hate."