Hughes Meets with Young Muslim Women

October 21, 2005

Source: Reuters

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2005-10-21T073952Z_01_MOR125931_RTRUKOC_0_US-INDONESIA-USA.xml

On October 21, 2005 Reuters reported, "U.S. goodwill envoy Karen Hughes got a earful from a group of mostly female Indonesian Muslim students on Friday, who expressed anger at the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and attacked Washington's foreign policies. Tasked by U.S. President George W. Bush to polish America's image overseas, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy is in Jakarta to meet leading Muslim clerics and students during a tour of the world's most populous Muslim nation. 'Why does America always act as if they were the police of the world?,' Barikatul Hikmah, a 20-year-old student at the Syarif Hidayatullah University asked Hughes. Lailatul Qadar, a petite 19-year-old student wearing colorful headscarves, added: 'It's Bush in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and maybe it's going to be in Indonesia, I don't know. Who's the terrorist? Bush or us?' The U.S. embassy organized the session with some 15 students at the university, a moderate Islamic center of learning that has received U.S. funding and which produces some of the country's most influential Muslim thinkers."