After years of neglect, the State Department is finally responding to Pakistan’s dismal record on religious freedom. The time is ripe for more serious action. This past Monday, a student in Pakistan shot his high school principal dead after being reprimanded for skipping school to attend a sit-in organized by one of Pakistan’s Islamist parties. The killer argued that the …
Via Destinations Magazine: Watch one of the most powerful moments of the @Thinkfest with Farahnaz Ispahani on a panel with Jibran Nasir discussing the condition and treatment of minorities in Pakistan. Here Ms Ispahani responds to a disgruntled audience member. “This is about us standing together and not apart…Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N are standing up for democracy. …
Farahnaz Ispahani ‘85 has been a leading voice for women and religious minorities in Pakistan for over two decades, working as a journalist, member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, and most recently as a United States-based scholar. An advocate of Pakistan’s return to democracy during the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, she served as a spokesperson and international media coordinator for …
Wellesley in Politics: Interview with Farahnaz Ispahani ‘85 (@fispahani) Farahnaz Ispahani ‘85 has been a leading voice for women and religious minorities in Pakistan for over two decades, working as a journalist, member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, and most recently as a United States-based scholar. An advocate of Pakistan’s return to democracy during the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, she served …
‘If I were to compare some notes with my elders and do the same with my younger ones, chances are that we may differ in many of our versions of historical events. The reasons are very simple: firstly, we don’t seem to get over our past and secondly, we can’t seem to decide which ending we like best for certain …
A brave new book describes how Pakistan unraveled — and provides a blueprint for understanding declining pluralism across the Middle East. When national security advisor H.R. McMaster wanted to convince U.S. President Donald Trump that Afghanistan was not hopeless, he whipped out a 1972 black-and-white picture of women in miniskirts on the streets of Kabul. The point of this exercise …
Countries adapted to celebrating their religious, racial, ethnic, and linguist diversity are typically stable and prosperous and face fewer domestic and external threats. But states obsessed with imposing a militarized uniformity on their diverse societies are prone to instability, secessionism, mounting extremism, violence, external interference, and intolerance. Former Pakistani lawmaker Farahnaz Ispahani’s book Purifying The Land Of The Pure: A …
As reports of atrocities against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state pour in, one thing is clear: The international community needs to respond more robustly. The United Nations refugee agency has reported that more than a quarter of the Rohingya in Myanmar — 270,000 people — have fled their homes so far. The horrors we’re seeing in Rakhine are …
On Easter Sunday last year a Taliban suicide bomber detonated ten kilograms of explosives and metal ball bearings in a park full of Pakistani Christian families in Lahore, killing 73. The bomber had chosen a spot between two children’s rides. 29 of those killed were children, the youngest only 2 years old. It is with this heartbreaking story that Farahnaz …
With Pakistan also celebrating 70 years of its independence Farahnaz Ispahani, Global Fellow at Washington’s Wilson Centre, former member of Pakistan Parliament (from Pakistan People’s Party) and former media advisor to the Pakistan President, spoke to Rohit E David on the political flux in Islamabad after the ouster of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister, its impact on Kashmir and the nefarious role of …