Close X
Saturday, November 2, 2024
ADVT 
International

Bangladeshi-Origin Muslim White House Staffer Quits US President Donald Trump's Office Over Travel B

IANS, 27 Feb, 2017 12:16 PM
    Hijab-wearing Muslim ex-White House staffer of Bangladeshi-origin has said she quit her job after US President Donald Trump announced his controversial travel ban, lasting just eight days in the new administration. Rumana Ahmed was hired in 2011 to work at the White House and eventually the National Security Council (NSC).
     
    "My job there was to promote and protect the best of what my country stands for. I am a hijab-wearing Muslim woman - I was the only hijabi in the West Wing - and the Obama administration always made me feel welcome and included," she wrote in an article published in The Atlantic.
     
    Ms Ahmed said that like most of her fellow American-Muslims, she spent much of 2016 watching with "consternation" as Mr Trump "vilified our community".
     
    "Despite this - or because of it - I thought I should try to stay on the NSC staff during the Trump Administration, in order to give the new president and his aides a more nuanced view of Islam, and of America's Muslim citizens.
     
    "I lasted eight days. When Trump issued a ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all Syrian refugees, I knew I could no longer stay and work for an administration that saw me and people like me not as fellow citizens, but as a threat," she said.
     
    Ms Ahmed said the evening before she left her job at the White House, she notified Mr Trump's senior National Security Council (NSC) communications adviser, Michael Anton, of her decision.
     
     
    "His initial surprise, asking whether I was leaving government entirely, was followed by silence - almost in caution, not asking why. I told him anyway," she wrote.
     
    "I told him I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country's most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim," Ms Ahmed said.
     
    She told Mr Anton that the administration was attacking the basic tenets of democracy. She said Mr Anton just looked at her and said nothing.
     
    Ms Ahmed, whose parents immigrated to the US from Bangladesh in 1978, said inspired by then president Barack Obama, she joined the White House in 2011, after graduating from the George Washington University.
     
    "The days I spent in the Trump White House were strange, appalling and disturbing," she wrote.
     
    Ms Ahmed's personal account comes amid a spike in incidents of intimidation and assault targeting hijab-wearing women across the US following Mr Trump's electoral triumph.

    MORE International ARTICLES

    Saibaba Temple Gets Rs. 3 Crore In Scrapped Notes After Currency Ban

    Saibaba Temple Gets Rs. 3 Crore In Scrapped Notes After Currency Ban
    The Shri Sai Baba Shirdi Sansthan, managing one of the most revered temples in the country, received Rs. 3 crore in the scrapped notes of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 denominations after the government's demonetisation move, the temple trust said today.

    Saibaba Temple Gets Rs. 3 Crore In Scrapped Notes After Currency Ban

    Hijab-Clad Teen Attacked By Men Screaming 'Trump' On US Subway

    Hijab-Clad Teen Attacked By Men Screaming 'Trump' On US Subway
    Three men attempted to rip off Yasmin Seweid's hijab, calling the 18-year-old student a "terrorist" and shouting President-elect Trump's name as she rode the subway through Manhattan.

    Hijab-Clad Teen Attacked By Men Screaming 'Trump' On US Subway

    Pakistani Restaurant Attacked Twice In US

    Pakistani Restaurant Attacked Twice In US
    A Pakistani restaurant in the US has been targetted for a second time in a suspected hate attack, the latest in a slew of anti-Muslim incidents since Donald Trump has been elected US President.

    Pakistani Restaurant Attacked Twice In US

    Pakistani Man, 68, Arrested For Trying To Import Heroin In US

    Pakistani Man, 68, Arrested For Trying To Import Heroin In US
    Shahbaz Khan was taken in custody by Liberian authorities on December 1 and brought to the United States. He was presented before United States Magistrate Judge James Cott on Friday, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said.

    Pakistani Man, 68, Arrested For Trying To Import Heroin In US

    UK Backs India's Bid For Permanent Membership Of UN Security Council

    UK Backs India's Bid For Permanent Membership Of UN Security Council
    British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson today supported India's quest for permanent membership of the UN Security Council as he called for its expansion to include India for a more "realistic" re-alignment of the world order.

    UK Backs India's Bid For Permanent Membership Of UN Security Council

    Indian-Origin Ex-Banker Jailed For Wife Sonita Nijhawan's Manslaughter In UK

    Indian-Origin Ex-Banker Jailed For Wife Sonita Nijhawan's Manslaughter In UK
    Sonita Nijhawan was discovered in a pool of blood in her family estate in Surrey, south England, in May this year.

    Indian-Origin Ex-Banker Jailed For Wife Sonita Nijhawan's Manslaughter In UK