Tarek Fatah

Tarek Fatah (Punjabi/Urdu: ; [t̪aɾɪk fətah] / [fəteh] 20 November 1949 – 24 April 2023) was a Pakistani-Canadian journalist and author.

He was a Punjabi born into Islam and was a vocal critic of the Pakistani religious and political establishment, and the partition of India.

Fatah was born on 20 November 1949 in Karachi, Pakistan into a Punjabi family which had migrated from Bombay to Karachi following the Partition of India in 1947.

He was a leftist student leader in the 1960s and 1970s and was imprisoned twice by military regimes.

Fatah graduated with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Karachi but entered into journalism as a reporter for the Karachi Sun in 1970, before becoming an investigative journalist for Pakistan Television.

In 1977, he was charged with sedition and barred from journalism by the Zia-ul Haq regime.

Fatah left Pakistan and settled in Saudi Arabia, before emigrating to Canada in 1987.

He stated that he eventually renounced his Pakistani citizenship due in part to the government's discrimination against Ahmadiyya.

Of himself, Fatah asserted:

"I am an Indian born in Pakistan, a Punjabi born in Islam; an immigrant in Canada with a Muslim consciousness, grounded in a Marxist youth. I am one of Salman Rushdie's many Midnight's Children: we were snatched from the cradle of a great civilization and made permanent refugees, sent in search of an oasis that turned out to be a mirage."

Fatah was a long-time member of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) and ran unsuccessfully in the 1995 provincial elections as the party's candidate in Scarborough North.

He subsequently worked for Ontario NDP leader, Howard Hampton.

From 1996 until 2006 Fatah hosted Muslim Chronicle, a weekly Toronto-based current affairs discussion show on CTS and VisionTV, which focused on the Muslim community.

In July 2006, he left the NDP to support Bob Rae's candidacy for the Liberal Party of Canada's leadership.

Rae, a former Ontario NDP leader and Premier of Ontario, had himself left the NDP several years earlier.

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 believed would open the way for religious fundamentalists to enter the party.

However, after Rae's defeat by Stéphane Dion, Fatah condemned similar racial and religious organization activity in the Liberal Party, arguing in a Globe and Mail editorial that Tamil, Sikh, Kurdish and Islamist Muslim leaders had engaged in "blatant efforts to wield political muscle," "bargaining the price of their cadre of delegates" and creating a "political process that feeds on racial and religious exploitation."

"I respect the diversity of Canada," he wrote, "but I want to celebrate what unites us, not what divides us into tiny tribes that can be manipulated by leaders who sell us to the highest bidder."

At a press conference on 2 October 2008, Fatah sharply criticized the federal New Democratic Party (NDP).

He stated that he was a lifetime social democrat who had supported the NDP for 17 years but that he could no longer be affiliated with that party.

He claimed that the NDP began opening its doors to Islamists under Alexa McDonough and that, under Jack Layton, he had seen them flood into the party.

Fatah Said that Islamists in the NDP have pursued a campaign to instill a sense of victimhood among Muslim youth.

From 2009 to 2015, Fatah was a broadcaster on Toronto radio station CFRB Newstalk 1010.

As well as appearing as a regular contributor on the John Moore Morning Show, Fatah was a co-host of the nightly Friendly Fire with Ryan Doyle and Tarek Fatah from 2009 to 2011 and from 2011 to 2015 he hosted The Tarek Fatah Show on Sunday afternoons.

In early 2011, Fatah Said that he received a threat via Twitter.

He contacted Toronto Police Service and later met with two police officers from 51 Division.

Fatah Said that police intelligence officers, one a Muslim officer who had shut down a previous investigation into a death threat, shut down the investigation and claimed that there was no threat.

Fatah criticized the Toronto Police over the incident.

In February 2011, he was scheduled to have a debate with Sheharyar Shaikh of the North American Muslim Foundation (NAMF), after Shaikh issued an open challenge to Fatah to debate him.

Fatah cancelled at the last minute and failed to show up.

Shaikh, who had defended polygamy and opposed secular education for Muslims, was a critic of Fatah's views.

Fatah stated that he had cancelled his appearance because the moderator was changed shortly before the event was to begin, and because the audience was hostile.

Fatah also claimed that he was warned by police of threats to his safety.

Fatah and Shaikh later appeared together in an interview for Sun News debating the role of Islam in ISIS.

From 2012 to 2023, Fatah has written a regular column for the Toronto Sun and was a frequent commentator on the now-defunct Sun News Network.

In a 2015 Toronto Sun column, Fatah wrote that he would be voting for Conservative leader Stephen Harper in the 2015 federal elections, while still calling himself a social democrat.

Fatah favoured both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders for the United States presidential race in 2016.

He said that many Muslim groups, and he himself, have recommended curbs on immigration from countries that harbour Islamist sympathisers, similar to policies promised by Trump.

From 2018 to 2023, Fatah was a regular host of "What The Fatah" which was hosted by New Delhi Times on their YouTube channel.

The talk show mainly focused on the current international political trends.