Professor Bennoune Presents Book in Algeria

Professor Karima Bennoune presented her book, Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight against Muslim Fundamentalism, in a forum hosted by El Khabar, Algeria's largest Arabophone newspaper, in Algiers on December 9. 

The event was attended by family members of a number of individuals whose opposition to fundamentalism is described in the book, including family members of Amel Zenoune-Zouani, a law student murdered by extremists for continuing her studies and one of the book's dedicatees.  Also in attendance were the heads of two of Algeria's major groups of victims of terrorism: Cherifa Kheddar, President of Djazairouna, and Adnane Bouchaib, President of Somoud, the collective of families of those who disappeared at the hands of the armed groups.

The forum drew widespread coverage in Algerian media, including an article in El Watan, the country's leading Francophone newspaper, which described Professor Bennoune's book as "precise" and "courageous" and praised her for not allowing the Algerian victims of terrorism to be forgotten.

In related news, Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here was selected by the editors of Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association, as one of the best books of 2013.

Karima Bennoune is an author, lecturer, teacher, and international law scholar as well as the first Arab-American to be honored with the Derrick A. Bell Award from the Section on Minority Groups of the Association of American Law Schools. She joined the King Hall faculty from Rutgers School of Law-Newark in 2012.

El Watan