"The Third Annual Report on Islamophobia by the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference] Observatory covers the period from May 2009 to April 2010. It was a turbulent period that witnessed an unprecedented surge in Islamophobia in the wake of a succession of high profile and far reaching events. It is indeed unfortunate that the reporting period, which commenced on a high and optimistic note with the land mark speech of US President Barak Obama in Cairo, was marred by events like the victory of far right political parties in the EU [European Union] Parliamentary elections, brutal murder of the Egyptian lady Marwa Al Sharabini in a German courtroom, the continuing saga of insulting and provocative publications like the reprinting of the cartoons, the desecration of graves of the Senegalese soldiers who sacrificed their lives defending the French soil during the Second World War and above all the Swiss ban on construction of Minarets."