Last Updated on January 21, 2021 at 6:23 pm
Joe Biden, America’s newly elected President, has appointed Sameera Fazili as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council of the Biden administration. She has been a vocal critic of India’s Kashmir policy and even played a vital role in organizing anti-India protests in the USA over the Kashmir issue. A report mentions that Fazili was involved in organization of a protest after abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.
Sameera has roots in Kashmir. Her parents left the valley in 1970-71. In 2007, she visited the valley for the last time. She has declared her support for ‘Stand with Kashmir’ (SWK) a Kashmiri diaspora-led international solidarity movement for Kashmir. In August 2019, following the abrogation of Article 370, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) approved her membership of SWK.
Sameera then urged “people of conscience” to come out and extend their support and solidarity for the people of Kashmir. She said that authoritarianism and Islamophobia has risen around the world. She then urged people to show support for human rights, international law, and democracy.
Experts who closely follow Indo-USA ties told ET that her actions should be closely watched. In the Obama-Biden administration, Fazili worked as a senior policy advisor on the White House’s National Economic Council and as a senior advisor at the US Treasury Department in both Domestic Finance and International Affairs. Earlier, she was a clinical lecturer of law at Yale Law School. Fazili has received her law degree from Yale Law School and her bachelor of arts in social studies from Harvard College.
She has also served at ShoreBank, US first CDFI (community development financial institution) bank. Biden has also included a second Pakistani American, Salman Ahmed, into his foreign policy team. Ahmed has served as head of strategic planning in the Obama National Security Council and is now joining the US State Department as director policy planning.
Biden has also previously announced to include another Pakistani American, Ali Zaidi, into his team as Deputy National Climate Adviser. Ahmed has served as chief of staff of the US Mission to the United Nations and senior policy adviser to the US Permanent Representative to the UN.
