Hands Across Justice

Nasser Weddady, outreach director of program partner Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance (HAMSA), visited UUSC's offices yesterday and made a presentation about his organization's work. Weddady was joined by Harvard student Zahra Hirji.

UUSC’s civil liberties program manager, Wayne Smith, said, “In my humble view, HAMSA is doing important and very good work and it is a pleasure to build bridges of understanding and cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims.”

Weddady and Hirji shared with us the work that this partner is doing to deepen understanding for people of all backgrounds, and to secure civil liberties and rights for people in the Middle East. HAMSA is a program of the American Islamic Congress, whose goal is to “unite all Americans in support of civil liberties and civil rights for the people in the Middle East.”

With UUSC's support, HAMSA presented a Fellowship Seminar for future leaders in Washington, D.C., and reproduced the SCLC's "The Montgomery Story: A Civil Rights Comic Book" in Arabic and Farsi for distribution in Iran and other Middle Eastern nations. They also shared about their work to help free Egyptian blogger AbdelKareem Nabil Soliman, jailed for expressing his political views.

“We’re not trying to impose democracy in the Middle East,” explained Hirji. “What we’re really about is emphasizing civil rights.”