State Department withholds award from alleged terrorism supporter

An Egyptian woman who was to receive an award from first lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry is being sent home empty-handed over allegations that she condoned terrorism and anti-Semitism.

Samira Ibrahim was to be recognized Friday with the secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award, along with nine other women from around the world, for having been subject to a forced virginity test and opposing Hosni Mubarak's government.

Ibrahim however has allegedly made several derogatory comments about Jews and celebrated the Sept. 11 attacks against America among the thousands of tweets she's posted, The Weekly Standard reported this week.

“Today is the anniversary of 9/11,” she allegedly tweeted last year. “May every year come with America burning.”

Commenting on the Hezbollah-linked bus bombing that killed five Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, last July, she allegedly celebrated “a very sweet day, with a lot of very sweet news.”

Ibrahim has since claimed her account was hijacked and that racist tweets aren't from her. The State Department however isn't taking her word for it and has postponed giving her the award until its computer experts comb through the account, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday.

“We, as a department, became aware very late in the process about Samira Ibrahim's alleged public comments. After careful consideration, we've decided that we should defer presenting this award to Ms. Ibrahim this year so that we have a chance to look further into these statements,” Nuland said.  “I would say that, in conversations with us in the last 24 hours, Ms. Ibrahim has categorically denied authorship. She asserts that she was hacked. But we need some time …  in order to be prudent to conduct our own review.”

“We initially selected Ms. Ibrahim because of the incredible bravery and courage she displayed at the time of the Tahrir Square protests. As you may recall, she was detained. She was subject to real police violence. Not only did she speak out about that, but she also became a real leader in her country in trying to address gender-based violence and other human rights abuses,” Nuland said. “So it was on that basis that she was initially selected. But, obviously, these comments need to be looked into. And we need some time.”

She said the department was reviewing its vetting system in light of the accusations.

“The way this process works, award recipients are nominated first by embassies around the world. Then they are reviewed here in Washington,” she said. “In the context of looking at her record, you know that she is a very big tweeter. She has tens of thousands of tweets. So these represent a small portion of those. So, obviously, you know, we're doing forensics internally on how we didn't catch it the first time. But, as I said, we're going to defer presentation.”

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