Zainab Al-Suwaij

Zainab Al-Suwaij is the co-founder and executive director of the American Islamic Congress, a post-September 11th social activist organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that works to foster tolerance, promote civil society and civil rights, and mobilize a moderate voice in the American Muslim community.

After fleeing Iraq following the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein (in which she participated), she worked as a refugee case manager for Interfaith Refugee Ministry. Since then, Ms. Al-Suwaij has worked tirelessly on issues of women’s rights and education. She has been a team member of the Revitalization of Iraqi Schools & Stabilization of Education (RISE) Program (USAID funded), worked with the former Iraqi Interim Governing Council to establish a constitutional minimum requirement of twenty-five percent women’s participation in the new Iraqi parliament and government, sponsored women’s literacy programs in several southern Iraq villages, and cofounded the Iraqi Women Higher Counsel to serve as an umbrella organization to assist small Iraqi women’s organizations in establishing themselves and realizing their goals.

Ms. Al-Suwaij’s writings on Iraq, Muslim women, and Islam have appeared in the The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, and The Houston Chronicle, and she has been interviewed on national programming including National Public Radio, CNN, Fox News.