Democracy and Human Rights Advocate Joins Freedom Forward Advisory Team
Freedom Forward is excited to share that human rights advocate Abdullah Alaoudh has joined Freedom Forward’s Advisory Board.
Abdullah Alaoudh is a co-founder of the National Assembly Party (NAAS), Saudi Arabia’s first openly declared political party, which calls for an elected parliament and constitutional safeguards in Saudi Arabia. He is also a signatory to the Saudi People’s Vision for Reform, a blueprint for democracy and human rights in Saudi Arabia.
Alaoudh serves as Director for the Gulf at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), the nonprofit organization founded by Jamal Khashoggi to promote democracy, the rule of law, and human rights for all of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). He is Visiting Adjunct Professor at the Elliott School at George Washington University and a former fellow at Yaqeen Islamic Institute. Alaoudh has published extensively on Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf and appears regularly in the media as a commentator.
His work has been featured in The New York Times, the Washington Post, and Foreign Policy. Previously, Alaoudh served as a Senior Fellow at the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University for two years, and was also a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Law School.
Alaoudh obtained his S.J.D. and L.L.M. from the University of Pittsburgh in comparative international law. While at the University of Pittsburgh, he completed his dissertation on religious institutions and the influence of the ulama (body of Muslim scholars) in post-revolutionary Arab countries. He received his B.A. in Islamic Law from Qassim University in Saudi Arabia.