Don Lemon to Muslim Human Rights Attorney: ‘Do You Support ISIS?’

By Jamilah King Jan 08, 2015

It’s a new year, but Don Lemon is up to his old, ignorant ways. The CNN anchor asked human rights attorney Arsalan Iftikhar, who’s Muslim, if he supported ISIS, apparently because Lemon thinks all Muslims support religious extremism. 

Iftikhar was on to discuss this week’s deadly shooting rampage at the Paris-based office of the satirical (and deeply problematic) paper Charlie Hebdo. He had just finished making a point about the difference between supporting a religious ideology versus sanctioning the mass executions of innocent people. 

Lemon doubled down on his line of questioning. "I just want to get more specific," he said. "Do you support ISIS?"

"Wait, did you just ask me if I supported ISIS?" Iftikhar replied. "I just answered your question. I said that obviously these 16 percent of people support the ideology, but I don’t think that would necessarily extrapolate to supporting of killing of innocent people. You can have sympathy for an ideology and not support the mass murdering of people."

Watch a clip of the interaction below: