2021 was a challenging year globally and it also impacted the work of the ADL Middle East Taskforce. Like so many, we could not organize in-person events, previously co-hosted with well-respected Washington, DC think tanks. Webinars replaced live audience programming. Although events remained accessible online, the advantage and impact of an in-person event was largely missing. But, it was still …
To quote a 2016 Amnesty International report, “As Good as Dead: The impact of blasphemy laws in Pakistan,” once an individual is accused of blasphemy, “they become ensnared in a system that offers them few protections, presumes them guilty, and fails to safeguard them against people willing to use violence.” On Saturday, Rome’s Colosseum was lit in red in support …
Asma Jahangir will be remembered for her conviction and courage Asma Jahangir will be remembered as a fearless advocate for the rule of law and human rights. She challenged the notion that religion or national security were sufficient grounds to ignore the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the time of her death on February 11, …
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 …
American Muslims, justifiably worried about increasing attacks on our community, must react strongly to the anti-Semitic sermons by two California Imams. Although one of them has since apologized, his call to “annihilate” Jews cannot be ignored just because of a statement of contrition.If Muslims want wider support for their concerns about threats to their community, they must also ostracize the …
Farahnaz Ispahani is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC and the author of the book Purifying The Land of The Pure: The History of Pakistan’s Religious Minorities (Oxford University Press, 2017). In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC. Ispahani was a Public …
The country’s Supreme Court dodges a decision by adjourning a high-profile blasphemy case. The fate of an illiterate berry picker on death row for blasphemy has gripped Pakistan in a furor of religious fanaticism. Few examples better illustrate the misplaced priorities of the Pakistani government and the country’s Islamist ideologues. Asia Bibi was scheduled to appear before Pakistan’s Supreme Court …
On September 29, the State Department added British citizen Sally Jones to its list of foreign terrorists. Jones is a 46-year-old punk rocker who converted to Islam and moved from Kent to Raqqa to join the Islamic State in 2013. She is also newly widowed, having lost her 21-year-old husband, ISIS hacker Junaid Hussain, in an American airstrike targeting him …
In establishing a homeland for Muslims, Pakistan’s founding father, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, also supported the idea of Islam serving as a unifying force and believed Pakistanis had a responsibility to uphold the principles of religious freedom and to protect the rights of religious minorities. As religious intolerance and violence against religious minorities grows, it is clear that Pakistan has failed …
Aaron talks with former Pakistani Assembly Member and current Pakistani Presidential Media Advisor and Spokeswoman Farahnaz Ispahani. They discuss religious strife in the Middle East and the destruction caused by military dictatorships, why, in Ispahani’s words, current events really can’t be called an “Arab Spring,” the struggle for women in the region, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also …