Professor Bennoune Publishes NY Times Op-ed on Fundamentalist Violence
Professor Karima Bennoune has published an op-ed entitled "Killing the Arab Spring in Its Cradle" in the New York Times. The article examines the role of the Islamist party Ennahda in "creating a climate of escalating fundamentalist violence that threatens the lives of liberal, left-wing, and secular activists" in Tunisia. Professor Bennoune calls for unity in opposing the fundamentalists as a means of avoiding an escalation of violence such as that which occurred in neighboring Algeria 20 years ago.
"To prevent Tunisia from going the way of Algeria, all anti-fundamentalist groups must unite - which they are beginning to do - and they will need the sort of international support Algeria's secular democrats never received," writes Bennoune. "Western governments must pressure the Tunisian authorities to protect those at risk."
Karima Bennoune is an author, lecturer, teacher, and international law scholar as well as the first Arab-American to be honored with the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Section on Minority Groups of the Association of American Law Schools. She joined the King Hall faculty from Rutgers School of Law-Newark in 2012.