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Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer and Contributing Editor for Islamica magazine; an international contemporary affairs magazine headquartered in Los Angeles and with editorial offices in London, Amman and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Read more...
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Columns
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CNN Column: Iran must halt woman's death by stoning |
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Date Posted: July 7, 2010 By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington, D.C. Washington (CNN) -- It is clearly stated in Article 5 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights that, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Adopted in 1948 by the U.N. General Assembly, in addition to outlawing torture categorically, this international treaty was to be used as a common standard for international law and outlined -- for the first time ever -- fundamental human rights to be protected anywhere around the world. Included under the category of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" would most certainly be the impending death by stoning of a 42-year-old Iranian mother for the alleged crime of adultery. Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani -- a mother of two -- could be stoned to death at any moment under the terms of a death sentence that Iranian authorities handed down in 2006. Read the rest of Arsalan’s CNN column here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/07/07/iftikhar.iran.stoning/index.html?hpt=T2 |
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CNN Column: Unenlightenment and the 'Holy Land' |
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Date Posted: June 7, 2010 By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington, D.C. (CNN) -- As a global community, we would probably like to believe that our ongoing human experiment has been driven by the enlightened advancement of collective human thought. Because as Mahatma Gandhi said, "I have nothing new to teach the world. ... Truth and nonviolence are as old as the hills." Yet the current mix of perpetual war and poverty, extremist terrorism and global racism raises the question of whether the human race has completely lost its collective mind. This sobering condition is no more apparent than in the ironically named "Holy Land" -- Israel and Palestine -- where civilized humanity has seemingly gone to die a very painful death. Read the rest of Arsalan’s CNN column here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/07/iftikhar.holy.land/ |
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CNN Column: Pakistan Should Ban Extremism, Not Facebook |
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Date Posted: May 20, 2010 By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington. (CNN) -- For a country that has produced five military dictators in 60 years, mourned the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and struggles continually against its own militant extremists who have killed thousands in their own nation, Pakistan has absolutely picked the wrong fight by banning Facebook and YouTube because of an idiotic virtual campaign called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." According to a story on CNN.com, Pakistan blocked access to YouTube -- a day after it shut down the social networking site Facebook -- after an online group called on people to draw the Prophet Mohammed. In response, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered its operators to shut down YouTube "in view of growing sacrilegious content on it." Instead of knee-jerk political reactions and impassioned threats of violence, as proud millennial Muslims we should reflect and ponder how our Prophet Mohammed would have responded to such silly faux controversies. Read the rest of Arsalan’s CNN column here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/20/iftikhar.draw.mohammad.day/ |
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Washington Post 'On Faith': What Would Muhammad Do? |
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Date Posted: May 19, 2010 By Arsalan Iftikhar
Attorney and Founder of TheMuslimGuy.com
In light of the recent South Park cartoon controversy surrounding 'depictions' of the Prophet Muhammad, some brainiac cartoonists around the world have decided to declare May 20 to be 'Everybody Draw Muhammad' day.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Seattle artist Molly Norris started the day rolling when she created a poster-like cartoon showing many objects -- from a cup of coffee to a box of pasta to a tomato -- all claiming to be the likeness of Muhammad. "I am Mohammed and I taste good," said the pasta box in the cartoon. On top of the cartoon images (but no longer on her Web site) was an announcement explaining the rationale behind the event. Norris now denies that 'draw Muhammad day' was here idea. As I wrote in a recent CNN column on the South Park controversy, as an American Muslim civil rights lawyer and proud First Amendment freak, I can honestly say that I love both my Prophet Mohammed and cartoons like South Park. In any free democratic society, the concept of free speech can only be combated with more free speech, not censorship. If the creators of "South Park" choose to depict the Prophet Mohammed, that is their First Amendment right, and they should be able to do so freely without any threats of physical violence and retribution. Read the entire column at: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/patheos/2010/05/what_would_muhammad_do.html |
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CNN Column: No-name radicals vs. 'South Park' just a distraction |
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By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN April 26, 2010 6:25 p.m. EDT Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington. (CNN) -- Free speech issues and portrayals of Islam needlessly stirred a hornet's nest recently when "South Park" depicted the Prophet Mohammed disguised in a bear suit in the 200th episode of the popular Comedy Central TV show. But what many people don't realize is that the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, already used an image of Mohammed on "South Park" without any strife whatsoever in a July 2001 episode called "Super Best Friends." Of course, that episode, which depicted Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed and other religious leaders as the "Super Best Friends" superhero crew, was aired before the September 11 attacks and the 2005 controversy over a Danish cartoon with drawings of the prophet. To generate some press coverage and needless dispute, two extremist buffoons at a radical website called "Revolution Muslim" directed a thinly veiled threat against the show's creators for depicting Mohammed in the recent episode. Much of the American mainstream media ended up giving a national platform to these unknown knuckleheads, which only helped to tarnish the reputation of Muslims in America further. Continue reading Arsalan’s CNN column at: http://us.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/26/iftikhar.south.park/index.html?hpt=C2 |
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CNN Column: Extremists of Any Color Can Commit Terrorism |
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March 10, 2010 By Arsalan Iftikhar
Special to CNN Editor's Note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and Legal Fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington. Washington (CNN) – Within the last month, our country has witnessed two senseless, high-profile acts of criminal violence that would have been labeled terrorism if brown-skinned Arab Muslim men with foreign-sounding names had committed them. Because two white men committed these acts of violence, however, our political and media chattering class never used the word "terrorism" in its discussions. Most recently, John Patrick Bedell, a 36-year-old man from California, walked up to two security guards outside the Pentagon Metro station in suburban Washington and started shooting. He was then shot and killed. According to The Christian Science Monitor, Bedell appeared "to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent anti-government feelings" and also battled mental illness before his shooting rampage. A few weeks ago, on February 18, another white anti-government extremist named Joseph Stack flew his small airplane into an Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Texas, killing two people and injuring 13 others. According to media reports, Stack had left behind a disjointed suicide letter in which he expressed his hatred of our American government and outlined grievances with the IRS, chillingly stating that "violence not only is the answer; it is the only answer." Continue reading Arsalan’s CNN Column at: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/09/iftikhar.white.terrorism/ |
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