Imran Firasat | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1978 (age 46–47) Pakistan |
| Occupation | Filmmaker |
| Known for | Criticism of Islam |
Imran Firasat (born 1978) [1] is a Pakistani Islam-critical filmmaker. Born in a Muslim family, he renounced Islam and converted to Christianity. [1] He lives in Spain, and has been described as a part of the counter-jihad movement. [2]
Firasat was born into a Muslim family in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. After moving in with his Buddhist wife, he says he faced harassment, and was detained by police who tortured him. [3] The couple fled to Spain as a result, obtaining political asylum in 2006. [4] There, he began blogging and giving interviews denouncing Islam. [3]
He then started getting death threats and was physically assaulted. [3] He subsequently fled to his wife's home country of Indonesia in 2010, [4] where he was detained over alleged blasphemy against Islam. He was then deported by Indonesian police and again returned to Spain. [3] His police record includes an Indonesian warrant for murder. [5] He rejects the murder charge saying that it was made up due to his criticism of Islam. [1]
Following the 2012 Benghazi attack, Firasat made the documentary The Innocent Prophet in partnership with American Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones. [3] The movie among other things asks whether Mohammed "was a child molester and a murderer." The governments of Belgium, France and the US expressed their concern over the ramifications the release of the video could produce. A Madrid court banned the release of the film, and Spain rescinded his asylum status on "grounds of a threat to the security of the state" as a result, [6] [7] stating that Firasat would be arrested if the film was shown. [8]
In July 2014, a new animated film that he co-produced with Danish Lars Hedegaard entitled Aisha and Muhammad was released. The film focuses on the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his marriage to the six-year-old Aisha. [9] Days later he travelled to Norway to seek asylum, but was detained and deported back to Spain based on the Dublin Regulation. [10] He was arrested in Spain until he was released in December 2014. [1]