Tell State Dept: Nafie Not Welcome

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Act for Sudan, Blue Nile State, Darfur, diplomacy, Faith J. H. McDonnell, genocide, ghost houses, Greta Van Susteren, Jihad, moral equivalence, Nafie Ali Nafie, Nuba Mountains, President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, State Department, Sudan, torture, U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, victims of torture

Nafie Ali Nafie, Khartoum chief negotiator and torturer. (Photo credit: Act for Sudan)

By Faith J. H. McDonnell (@Cuchulain09)

Last week I wrote an article for Front Page Magazine (and reposted on this blog) about the Obama Administration inviting Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie, the Advisor to ICC-indicted war criminal Sudanese president Omar al Bashir to Washington for “high-level” diplomatic talks. Since that time, outrage has been growing about the inappropriateness and downright offensiveness of this invitation. But the Obama Administration appears to not care what the human rights community thinks of this unthinkable visit.

News of the invitation to Dr. Nafie and his delegation was met with instant protest by Sudan human rights activists and others. U.S. Representative Frank Wolf wrote to President Obama, asking him to rescind the invitation. Fox News show host Greta Van Susteren, who frequently speaks about the current genocide in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State, has also added her voice to the outrage over Nafie’s visit. And the Act for Sudan alliance, of which IRD is a founding member, is protesting the Nafie visit through a social media campaign.

In addition to representing a genocidal regime, Nafie is detestable in his own right, as the creator of Sudan’s torture chambers known as Ghost Houses, and behind-the-scenes architect of genocide in South Sudan/Nuba Mountains, Darfur, and now again in Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State. The Act for Sudan website features the testimonies from Nafie’s victims, and even a short (3:40 min.) video about Nafie from Operation Broken Silence, “Ghost Houses and War Criminals.”

The State Department knows all of this, of course, and yet it has not been swayed. A Khartoum-based Sudanese newspaper, The Citizen, on May 5 reported that “Diplomatic sources unveiled to The Citizen yesterday that the United States administration is determined to complete the Washington meeting in two weeks, despite the fierce opposition.”

Here’s how you can register your protest about the visit of Nafie Ali Nafie:

Act for Sudan is urging concerned citizens to ask Secretary of State John Kerry to rescind the invitation to the Sudanese delegation. On the Act for Sudan website is a prepared letter to Kerry warning that the invitation “undermines established U. S. policy and violates President Obama’s promise to bar perpetrators of serious human rights violations from entry to this country.” It adds that the invitation is an “affront to the victims and vulnerable people in Sudan.” The social media campaign also provides suggested Twitter and Facebook messages. Please add your voice to the campaign today!

Tweet for Nagmeh and Other #RealWomenofCourage

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9/11, anti-Semitism, Faith J. H. McDonnell, First Lady Michelle Obama, IWD, IWOC, Nagmeh Abedini, Real Women of Courage, Saeed Abedini, Samira Ibrahim, Samuel Tadros, Secretary of State John Kerry, State Department, The Weekly Standard

By Faith J. H. McDonnell (@Cuchulain09)

Yesterday, we planned a twitter campaign protesting the State Department’s honoring Samira Ibrahim, an anti-Semitic Egyptian woman who is also a 9/11 fan as an “International Women of Courage.” We would denounce this action and highlight those whom we believe are real women of courage, such as Nagmeh Abedini, the wife of imprisoned Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini. Today, our plans for the twitter campaign have changed. The State Department withdrew the award from Ibrahim. But our second goal — highlighting real women of courage — remains. Tweeting begins at 2:30 PM E.T. today.

An article in The Weekly Standard by Hudson Institute scholar Samuel Tadros revealed the truth about Ibrahim. She was one of ten women from around the world to be honored by First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. Tadros wrote that the State Department’s profile (now removed) of Ibrahim describes her as being, “among seven women subjected by the Egyptian military to forced virginity tests in March 2011.” The press release adds that Samira “was arrested while in high school for writing a paper that criticized Arab leaders’ insincere support to the Palestinian cause.”

Tadros says that “Apparently, the State Department is unaware of her other convictions.” But not for long, thanks to the controversy raised by his article. Ibrahim’s other convictions are expressed through her Twitter account, explains Tadros. On July 18, 2012, when five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed in a suicide bombing attack, “Ibrahim jubilantly tweeted: ‘An explosion on a bus carrying Israelis in Burgas airport in Bulgaria on the Black Sea. Today is a very sweet day with a lot of very sweet news'” Tadros reveals. He lists of other anti-Semitic tweets by Ibrahim, as well.

Then Tadros shows Ibrahim to be a fan of the 9/11 terrorist attack, as well. Says Tadros: “As a mob was attacking the United States embassy in Cairo on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, pulling down the American flag and raising the flag of Al Qaeda, Ibrahim wrote on twitter: ‘Today is the anniversary of 9/11. May every year come with America burning.'” Tadros says that Ibrahim may have feared “the consequences of her tweet” so “she deleted it a couple of hours later, but not before a screen shot was saved by an Egyptian activist.”

In response to the accusation of her virulent tweets, Ibrahim claimed that her Twitter account had been hijacked and she was not responsible for them. But then the translation by Egyptian democracy activist Mina Rezkalla of Ibrahim’s latest tweet was printed in a follow-up article in The Weekly Standard today “I refuse to apologize to the Zionist lobby in America regarding my previous anti-Zionist statements under pressure from American government therefore they withdrew the award.” Writer Lee Smith concludes, “This would seem to settle the question as to whether or not her page had been ‘stolen.'”

At 3:00 PM, the U.S. State Department will be celebrating International Women’s Day by honoring 9 women from around the world, instead of 10, as “Women of Courage.” We want to highlight our own women of courage, such as Nagmeh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, Lila Rose, Jill Stanek, Betty Ann Ong, and others while the State Department and viewers of the event are on Twitter. The State Department has encouraged “attendees and those watching the livestream to use the Twitter hashtag #IWOC and #IWD when discussing the events.” So we are accepting the State Department’s invitation, and tweeting about #RealWomenofCourage. One of our goals is to help Nagmeh Abedini #SaveSaeed. Will you join us?