Saba Ahmed | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | January 11, 1985 Rawalpindi, Pakistan |
Nationality | Pakistani American |
Citizenship | Pakistan United States |
Education | Portland State University (BS) University of Portland (JD) |
Occupation | President of the Republican Muslim Coalition |
Political party | Republican |
Movement | Conservatism |
Saba Ahmed (born January 11, 1985) [1] is a Pakistani-American political activist, lawyer, and engineer. She is the founder [2] and president of the Republican Muslim Coalition, [3] [4] former lawyer at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, [5] and former engineer at Intel. [6] She has urged Muslim Americans to vote Republican. [7] She supports Donald Trump, [3] but has said she is "deeply hurt by [his] ignorant views of Islam." [7]
Ahmed was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, moved to America when she was 12, and then grew up in Oregon. [8]
She came to public attention as a friend of the family of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, convicted for his attempt to bomb a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, Oregon. Ahmed was interviewed by the press. [6] She posited that he may have been "framed." [9] [10]
In January 2011, she was in the local news because her family said she was missing, but she was actually safe in California. [11] At that time her family claimed she was diagnosed with a mental disorder, but Ahmed has denied that. [6] In 2011, she ran for U.S. Congress as a Democrat. [5] [6]
In 2014, she published an essay in The Guardian , explaining that she had become a Republican in 2014 because she believes her Islamic pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-business, pro-trade values are aligned with GOP. [4] [5] [7] In June 2014, at a panel hosted by The Heritage Foundation on the Benghazi attacks, activist Brigitte Gabriel taunted her after asking about their portrayal of all Muslims as bad. [8] [12] In 2015, she made headlines for wearing an American flag hijab on Fox News. She was discussing Trump's comment that he would consider shutting down certain radical mosques after a series of terrorist attacks in Paris. She invited Trump to go to a mosque. [5] [13] [14] [2] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]
Oregon 1st Congressional District Special Democratic Primary Election, 2011 | |||
---|---|---|---|
Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
Democratic | Suzanne Bonamici | 49,721 | 65.18 |
Democratic | Brad Avakian | 16,963 | 22.24 |
Democratic | Brad Witt | 6,003 | 7.87 |
Democratic | Dan Strite | 1,212 | 1.59 |
Democratic | Dominic Hammon | 923 | 1.21 |
Democratic | Todd Lee Ritter | 651 | 0.85 |
Democratic | Write-ins | 469 | 0.61 |
Democratic | Saba Ahmed | 250 | 0.33 |
Democratic | Robert Lettin | 91 | 0.12 |