MISfortunes
Khizr Khan on being vilified by Trump: 'The far right feels that their voice has been heard'
Khizr Khan on being vilified by Trump: 'The far right feels that their voice has been heard'
When the father of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq spoke at the Democratic national convention in July, he found himself under fire from Donald Trump. Since then, Khan has been bombarded with hate mail - and even asked to run for office
One thing he’s sure about, though, is “Trump needs to come off Twitter”. Khan stays away from social media, having seen its perils. In his legal career, Khan specialises in electronic evidence discovery. In one case he worked on, a driver involved in a deadly 2007 vehicle crash was told by his lawyer to erase a Facebook photo showing him holding a beer and wearing a T-shirt that read “I ♥ Hot Moms”. But the other side had already downloaded it. The lawyer is now serving a five-year suspension.
“Nobody is telling Trump the damage it can do,” says Khan. He does not, however, offer his services as a consultant to the president-elect.
At a loss for many more words of his own, Khan unfolds a printout he shows his student audiences. It is a quotation by Elie Wiesel, the writer and Auschwitz survivor, who died in July. It is what he believes.
“We must always take sides,” Wiesel said. “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”



