Syrian refugee, 7, to Trump on Twitter: 'Am I a terrorist?'
The 7-year-old Syrian "peace preacher" who lit up the Internet last year took to Twitter on Wednesday to ask President Trump whether she is a terrorist.
Bana Alabed's social media posts describing life in besieged Aleppo — and calling out the West for failure to end the crisis — drew worldwide acclaim. Wednesday, Trump defended his controversial executive order that implemented travel restrictions for Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries.
"Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN. Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country!" he tweeted.
Bana retweeted the president with the comment "Am I a terrorist?"
Bana has called out Trump in other tweets in recent days. After six Muslims were fatally shot Sunday at a Canadian mosque, Bana tweeted, "I don't see Donald Trump tweeting about the terrorist attack in Quebec. What happened Mr @realdonaldtrump? Because affected are Muslims?"
A few days earlier, she tweeted an open letter to the president, saying her life in Turkey is good and imploring him to help children still suffering in her native country.
"You must do something for the children of Syria because they are like your children and deserve peace like you," the letter says. "If you promise me you will do something for the children of Syria, I am already your new friend."
During the siege of Aleppo, Bana tweeted photos and videos depicting a war-torn wasteland. Her Twitter profile — "I am 7 years old peace preacher" — drew worldwide notice and 366,000 followers. (Trump, for the record, has more than 23 million followers.) Syrian President Bashar Assad dismissed her Twitter account as a publicity stunt.
Bana and her family were feared dead or captured by Syrian government forces when her Twitter account went offline in December. It quickly returned, and on Dec. 13, rebels and government forces reached a truce. Within days, Bana, her parents and younger brother and sister rode evacuation buses to freedom in Turkey, where Bana met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. She thanked him for his efforts to end the suffering in Aleppo.
“I was very much afraid,” Alabed said to Erdogan in Arabic. “I was afraid for my family. I was afraid they could die. Because we were under bombardment every day. We were afraid of dying.”
In English, she said she "would like to thank you for supporting the children of Aleppo and help us to get out from the war."