Ensaf Haidar, wife of the jailed Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi, shows a portrait of her husband as he is awarded with the Sakharov Prize, Wednesday Dec, 16, 2015. Haidar says her husband’s health is deteriorating. (AP Photo/Christian Lutz).
NEWSWEEK - By Ensaf Haidar
President-elect Donald Trump, the American people voted you as the future 45th President of the United States and entrusted you with many missions and responsibilities. As head of a great democracy you will be the defender of what the forefathers of the American nation cherished the most: liberty and freedom of speech for all the citizens irrespective of their origin, religion, wealth or social status.
Leonard Cohen, our dearest Montreal and urban poet died November 10. In his latest album, his words resonated with me: “There’s a lover in the story/But the story’s still the same/There’s a lullaby for suffering/And a paradox to blame/But it’s written in the scriptures/And it’s not some idle claim/You want it darker/We kill the flame.”
We must protect this flame—a light of freedom, of expression, of the values that make America great.
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