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Revision as of 22:24, 5 December 2005 by Formeruser-82 (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Tarek Fatah is a Muslim Canadian journalist and political activist and 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.
A biochemist by training, Fatah entered journalism as a reporter for the Karachi Sun in 1970 and went on to become an investigative journlaist 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 immigrated 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.
Since 1996 he has hosted the television show Muslim Chronicle. He has also written opinion pieces for various newspapers including the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.
He was a founding member of the Muslim Canadian Congress in 2003 and serves as its communications director and spokesperson. In this capacity, he has spoken out against the introduction of Sharia law as an option for Muslims in civil law in Ontario and has promoted separation of religion and state and social liberalism in the Muslim community.
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."
His daughter, Natasha Fatah, is a producer of the CBC Radio program As It Happens.
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