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Tarek Fatah is a Muslim Canadian journalist, TV host, political activist, and was a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress.
Fatah was a student radical in Pakistan in the 1960s and 1970s and was imprisoned under military governments under the charge of sedition.
A biochemist by training, Fatah entered journalism as a reporter for the Karachi Sun in 1970 and went on to become an investigative journalist for Pakistani television. He was fired after the coup that brought Zia ul-Haq to power and fled to Saudi Arabia where he lived for a decade.
In 1987, he emigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto. He became involved in the Ontario New Democratic Party and worked on the staff of Premier Bob Rae. Fatah was an NDP candidate in the 1995 provincial election but was unsuccessful. In July 2006, he left the NDP to support Bob Rae's candidacy for the Liberal Party of Canada's leadership. In an opinion piece published in Toronto's Now Magazine, Fatah wrote that he decided to leave the NDP because of the establishment of a "faith caucus" which he believes will open the way for religious fundamentalists to enter the party.
Since 1996 he has hosted Muslim Chronicle, a Toronto-based current affairs discussion show focusing on the Muslim community. Fatah has interviewed notables such as journalist Husain Haqqani and author Tariq Ali on his programme which airs on CITS-TV.
Fatah has also written opinion pieces for various newspapers including the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.
In 2003, Fatah engaged in a high-profile break with Irshad Manji in the pages of the Globe and Mail in which he repudiated the thanks she gave him in the acknowldgement section of her book The Trouble with Islam. Fatah wrote of Manji's book that it "is not addressed to Muslims; it is aimed at making Muslim-haters feel secure in their thinking."
He was a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress in 2001 and served as its communications director and spokesperson until 2006. In this capacity, he has spoken out against the introduction of Sharia law as an option for Muslims in civil law in Ontario, has promoted separation of religion and state, social liberalism in the Muslim community, and endorsed same-sex marriage. He resigned from the MCC in August 2006 citing concerns that his high profile as a socially liberal Muslim had put him and his family at risk.
In 2006, Fatah campaigned to bar the Islamic cleric Sheikh Abu Yusuf Riyadh Ul-Huq from entering Canada on a speaking tour. This campaign added to Fatah's unpopularity with conservative Muslims. On June 30, 2006, he was named by the Canadian Islamic Congress's official publication, Friday Magazine, as one of four leading anti-Islam figures. The article, penned by CIC leader Mohamed Elmasry, desribed Fatah as "well known in Canada for smearing Islam and bashing Muslims."
Wahida Valiante, vice-chair and national vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress told the Globe and Mail that "Tarek Fatah's views are diametrically opposed to most Muslims. There is a tremendous amount of discussion in the community. His point of view contradicts the fundamentals of Islam."
Fatah has written to the RCMP to complain about the CIC's article claiming that it "is as close as one can get to issuing a death threat as it places me as an apostate and blasphemer.".
Fatah says he has been attacked for his views, verbally at an Islamic conference in 2003 where dozens of young Muslim men mobbed him while a cleric shouted out that he had insulted the Prophet Mohammed's name and in 2006 when he was accosted on Yonge Street by a man who accused him of being an apostate. His car windows have also been smashed.
His daughter, Natasha Fatah, is a producer of the CBC Radio program As It Happens.
References
- Tarek Fatah, "Faith no more - How the NDP's flirtation with religion pushed me out of the party", Now Magazine, July 20-26, 2006
- Sonya Fatah, "Fearing for safety, Muslim official quits", Globe and Mail, August 3, 2006
External links
- Thanks, but no thanks: Irshad Manji's book is for Muslim-haters, not Muslims - Fatah's criticism of Irshad Manji
- The trouble with à la carte critics - Manji's response to Fatah
- PDF letter concerning British cleric Shaykh Riyadh ul Haq
- Faith no more - How the NDP's flirtation with religion pushed me out of the part by Tarek Fatah, Now Magazine opinion piece in which Fatah explains his decision to join the Liberal Party.