AIFD continues to bring awareness and education to the public through writings, media interviews, and participation in public forums. Our goal is to bring the war of ideas against Islamism into the public eye, exposing Islamism’s true nature, and taking on Islamists and their non-Muslim allies on the public stage.
National 2017 – 2018
Daily national media engagement: we have made over 182 media appearances, reaching an audience size of 48M+, offering over 121 million media impressions. Regularly, national media reaches out to us for opinions during segments, news stories, and coverage of issues related to national security, terrorism, Muslim communities, immigration and foreign policy, to name a few. Our website aifdemocracy.org and our YouTube page “aifdtv” along with our social media footprints at FaceBook, Twitter and emails to our supporters, broadcasts these segments regularly.
Our nationally distributed podcast, Reform This! (on Soundcloud, iTunes and distributed by Blaze Radio) hosted over 100 weekly episodes since its introduction and has continued its exponential growth of following and cross-platform engagement.
Al Hurra Television of the Middle Eastern Broadcast Corporation (an Arabic language American television network in the Middle East) has regularly used AIFD as a resource for American Muslim representation on air on a nearly weekly basis with over 50 appearances in 2017 and 2018. This year, they have decided to feature AIFD’s work in a documentary on leading Muslim reformers to air later in 2018. Veteran producer, Ali Mahdi, is the lead correspondent and has recently spent significant time in Phoenix on and off camera with the entire board of directors of AIFD early this year. We will be broadening our relationship and engagement with their producers and network as this is part of the US government ideological strategy which is directly in line with our work. [January 2017-2018]
CPAC 2018: Zuhdi Jasser was part of a distinguished group of panelists that among 4 members included Ambassador John Bolton now National Security Advisor for President Trump, discussing “What is the Biggest Threat to the U.S.?” This opportunity among many others at CPAC has placed AIFD in even closer contact with the administration. [February 2018]
Oklahoma City Town Hall “Lunch with the Speaker” attended by over 1,000 local Oklahoma City citizens in the interfaith community. Previous speakers for 2018 included Ambassador Bolton and Colonel Allen West. [March 2018]
“Stewart Security Summit” Jasser was invited to speak at this annual event attended by over 500 thought leaders in Salt Lake City, Utah, by Congressman Chris Stewart (R-UT) to discuss “Defining America’s Role in the World.” [March 2018]
Duke University: AIFD was invited by leading student organizations to speak on “The American Muslim Identity: Patriot or Insurgent”. The event generated a considerable amount of controversy from Islamist groups on campus and yielded breakthroughs with student media on free speech and the engagement of Muslim students and professors on American Muslim issues. [April 2018]
University of Notre Dame: Hosted by the Notre Dame College Republicans, Young Americans for Freedom and other campus groups, Jasser spoke to a large student group on the topic of “Taking on the Islamist Establishment”. [April 2018]
Jasser was invited to participate in a dynamic conversation on “The Silence on Female Genital Mutilation” with Alan Dershowitz and moderated by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, hosted by The Gatestone Institute. At this event, Dr. Jasser publicly debated and challenged Alan Dershowitzs recently expressed a position on permitting a compromise ‘nicking’ circumcision procedure for Muslim girls. [May 2018]
Testifying before The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Dr Jasser spoke on the need to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization. [July 2018]
Muslim Reformers Conference in Aspen, CO discussing “The Reform Movement, why and how is it working out?” [August 2018]
Hosted by the Middle East Forum, AIFD joined a group of distinguished peers to attend the “Counter Islamism Summit” in Washington DC [September 2018]
Joining a distinguished group of thought leaders, Dr. Jasser spoke at the “Ultimate Decisions” event on September 13th. Other speakers included Dennis Prager, Bill Montgomery, Sebastian Gorka and more.
