From the Middle East Quarterly
By HEATHER ROBINSON
Spring 2009
Amid growing conservatism and ethnic and sectarian populism in Iraq, parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi, a Sunni Arab, has become the country’s chief advocate for liberal values including a free market, free press, religious pluralism, cooperation among democracies in fighting terror, …
It has been less than five years since the founding of the LibforAll Foundation, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization dedicated to supporting moderate Muslims and promoting a nonviolent, pluralistic interpretation of Islam. But already this foundation has been credited with actually stemming the spread of extremist, militant Islam in Indonesia, home to 240 million people - …
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, a Bangladeshi journalist who has labored to build bridges between Israel and his country, was beaten this morning in the Dhaka offices of his newspaper, The Weekly Blitz, by thugs he believes to be members of the Bangladeshi government’s ruling party, the Awami League.
Choudhury suffered eye, …
Hopeful news out of Iraq this morning as an Iraqi court has voted to acquit Mithal al-Alusi, a great Iraqi champion of human rights, of prosecution for visiting Israel.
Alusi is a member of the Iraqi Parliament and founder of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation (DPIN), a grassroots Iraqi political party advancing human–including …
In today’s American Spectator online, I have a piece about the Iraqi Parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi, whose sons were murdered in February 2005 following his visit to Israel to attend a counterterrorism conference there. Over the weekend, I received an alarming e-mail from al-Alusi’s friend Esther Kandel, who alerted me …
On Tuesday, members of Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, a paramilitary wing of the government, stormed the offices of Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, arrested and interrogated him. In 2003, Mr. Choudhury, editor of the newspaper The Weekly Blitz, was arrested and tortured for seventeen months. His “crimes” included trying to visit Israel, investigating the …
Tonight I was proud of New York University, my grad school alma mater. Irshad Manji, the gutsy and eloquent author of “The Trouble With Islam Today,” is getting behind something new - The Moral Courage Project at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Her mission? To demonstrate moral courage, and to encourage future …
In late October, I had the privilege of spending the day with Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, a courageous Bangladeshi journalist. In 2003, the Bangladeshi government arrested Mr. Choudhury. He was beaten, tortured, starved, and deprived of medical attention for glaucoma and broken bones.
His crime?
Attempting to visit Israel, and daring to write pro-Israel pieces in his …
From The New York Sun
By HEATHER ROBINSON
November 13, 2007
Lawyers from firms across the city will stop billing clients for half an hour today to rally in support of the lawyers and judges of Pakistan.
The rally, planned for 1 p.m. in front of the New York County Courthouse at 60 …
Iraq’s Maverick
From The American Spectator
By HEATHER ROBINSON
Last month, Iraqi parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi contacted me by phone from Baghdad with an urgent warning that Iran could be a lot closer to attaining nuclear weapons than most analysts believe.
“Do they have an atom bomb? Not yet,” he told me. …