“Wait, did you just ask if I support ISIS?” That was the comeback from human rights lawyer and activist, Arsalan Iftikhar. as he tried to wrap his head around the rather outlandish question from CNN’s Don Lemon. The two were discussing the events in France where Muslim gunmen murdered 12 people because of satirical cartoons they made about the prophet Mohammed.
Lemon’s question stemmed from a report saying that 16% of French citizens support ISIS and he asked the questioned if Iftikhar supports the terrorist group as well. After asking Don if he really just asked that question, Iftikhar skillfully carried on the conversation talking about the 16% report.
Earlier in the interview, Iftikhar compared the violence of Islam to the violence of Christianity. “It’s important to not conflate the actions of a very few to a population of 1.7 billion people, which represents 20 percent of the word’s population,” he said. “When Christians commit acts of terror, we don’t ask priests and pastors to go on national television and condemn these acts. But sadly, Muslim public intellectuals, thinkers, leaders, and Islamic scholars have that double standard that we have to deal with.”
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