Professor Karima Bennoune Appointed as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights
I am pleased to report that the United Nations Human Rights Council has appointed my colleague Professor Karima Bennoune as its Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights. In her role as Special Rapporteur, Professor Bennoune will make official visits to countries; observe and report on the promotion and protection of cultural rights at the local, national, regional and international levels; identify possible obstacles to the promotion and protection of cultural rights and make recommendations to the Council on possible actions; and present reports to the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly.
Professor Bennoune’s book, Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here, won the 2014 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction. Released in August 2013, the book addresses resistance to fundamentalism in Muslim majority contexts. The field research for this book took Karima to many countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Mali, Niger and Russia. The TED talk based on the book, “When people of Muslim heritage challenge fundamentalism,” has received more than 1.3 million views.
KJ