Close X
Tuesday, November 26, 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

    Donald Trump At The White House To Begin Transition Of Power: Obama Reports 'Excellent Conversation'

    Donald Trump At The White House To Begin Transition Of Power: Obama Reports 'Excellent Conversation'
    The two men have had almost no one-on-one contact previously. Trump, a Republican, led the "birther" movement that questioned Obama's US citizenship and has pledged to overturn the Democrat's signature policy achievements after he takes office on Jan. 20

    Donald Trump At The White House To Begin Transition Of Power: Obama Reports 'Excellent Conversation'

    We Are All Rooting For Trump's Success: Obama

    We Are All Rooting For Trump's Success: Obama
    Obama, speaking at the White House with Vice President Joe Biden next to him, also advised that people should not get cynical due to defeat.

    We Are All Rooting For Trump's Success: Obama

    Sikh Taxi Driver Tejinder Pal Singh Wins Australian Of The Year Award For Serving Free Meals

    Sikh Taxi Driver Tejinder Pal Singh Wins Australian Of The Year Award For Serving Free Meals
    Meet Tejinder Pal Singh, founder of a free-meal initiative called the ‘food van’, who will be awarded the 2017 Northern Territory Local Hero honour as part of the prestigious ‘Australian Of The Year Award’.

    Sikh Taxi Driver Tejinder Pal Singh Wins Australian Of The Year Award For Serving Free Meals

    Indian Americans Make Big Push Into Congress

    Indian Americans Make Big Push Into Congress
    Indian Americans made a mark in Congressional politics with one of them becoming the first to be elected to the Senate and four others winning seats in the House of Representatives.

    Indian Americans Make Big Push Into Congress

    Doanld Trump Elected US President In Voters' Revolt Against Establishment

    Doanld Trump Elected US President In Voters' Revolt Against Establishment
    The maverick outsider Donald Trump stunned the world by winning the US Presidency, the most powerful global job, as voters revolted against a smug, condescending establishment, rejecting Hillary Clinton - seen as the face of the status quo.

    Doanld Trump Elected US President In Voters' Revolt Against Establishment

    A Twice-Divorced Saudi Mother Of 6 Reinterprets Islamic Law

    A Twice-Divorced Saudi Mother Of 6 Reinterprets Islamic Law
    JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia — When Souad al-Shammary posted a series of tweets about the thick beards worn by Saudi clerics, she never imagined she would land in jail.

    A Twice-Divorced Saudi Mother Of 6 Reinterprets Islamic Law