As one of the most respected international human rights lawyers, Amal Clooney has represented ISIS survivors, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the former prime minister of Ukraine. Her accomplishments give her the authority to speak about the impact of certain political events on world citizens, and with the current change in United States leadership, Amal had a few things to say about President-Elect Donald Trump’s proposed policies, particularly those that relate to Muslim Americans.
At the Texas Conference for Women this week, she took an aim at Trump. His comments “that there should be a religious test imposed on entering the U.S. or the fact that there should be state-sponsored torture or that families of suspected terrorists should all be killed—all of those things are violations of international human rights law and the values that underlie that,” she said.
The lawyer (and wife of left-leaning activist George Clooney) also expressed concern about the ability of Trump’s rhetoric to tarnish America’s reputation and moral standing among other countries. But Amal didn’t focus solely on the negative; she told the crowd that she was optimistic about Trump’s presidency. “The president-elect has said that fighting ISIS is actually a priority, so it may be that there can be progress, and obviously everyone has to respect the outcome of the democratic process here,” she said. “We have to hope for the best.”
Of course, she didn’t leave the stage without offering a few words on gender equality, urging women to engage in “everyday acts of feminism” by supporting one another not only in the workplace, but also in personal growth. “The worst thing that we can do as women is not stand up for each other, and this is something we can practice every day, no matter where we are and what we do—women sticking up for other women, choosing to protect and celebrate each other instead of competing or criticizing one another,” she said. Now that’s something we can get behind.
