1. Anne Azza Aly is an Australian politician who has been a Labor member of the House of Representatives since the 2016 election, representing the electorate of Cowan in Western Australia.
25 Facts About Anne Aly
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Anne Aly is the first female federal parliamentarian of Islamic faith and one of Australia's first two government ministers to be Muslim.
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Anne Aly was a professor, lecturer and academic specialising in counter-terrorism, and she is considered a global authority on understanding how and why young people are drawn into violent extremism.
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Anne Aly founded People Against Violent Extremism to address extremism in Australia.
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Anne Aly's mother was a nurse and her father an engineer.
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Anne Aly returned to Egypt for university, then returned to Australia with her first husband to raise their children in Perth close to her retired parents.
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Anne Aly graduated from the American University in Cairo in 1990 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honours in English Literature, with a minor in Acting; and in 1994, received a Graduate Diploma of Arts from Edith Cowan University; followed by a Master of Education degree in 1996, and PhD in 2008, both from Edith Cowan University.
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In 2001 Anne Aly became a policy officer for the Government of Western Australia, where she worked in education and multicultural affairs policy from 2000 to 2007, including as a senior policy officer in the Office of Multicultural Interests from 2003.
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From 2007 to 2008, Anne Aly worked for the Equal Opportunity Commission WA.
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Anne Aly lectured in counter-terrorism and security at Edith Cowan University from 2009 to 2011, and then at Curtin University from 2011.
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Anne Aly was appointed associate professor at Curtin in 2014, and Professor at Edith Cowan in 2015.
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Anne Aly is an active member of Curtin University's The Centre for Culture and Technology, leading its Countering Online Violent Extremism research program.
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Anne Aly has written published academic papers, books and newspaper articles on terrorist recruitment and counter-messaging and the involvement of former white supremacists in speaking out against violent extremism.
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In 2008, Anne Aly received the Dean's Award for Best New Researcher from Edith Cowan University.
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Anne Aly's research has been funded by the Australian Research Council's Safeguarding Australia Initiative.
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In 2013, Anne Aly founded a youth-led not-for-profit organisation, People Against Violent Extremism, to address extremism in Australia.
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In 2015, Anne Aly was the only Australian invited to address Barack Obama's Countering Violent Extremism summit at the White House.
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In 2016, Anne Aly was nominated for Australian of the Year.
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In 2016, after speaking against comments from Immigration Minister Peter Dutton regarding Lebanese Muslim immigration, Anne Aly was subject to a series of online attacks and death threats directed at her family.
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In 2017, Anne Aly was the victim of a fake-news attack claiming that she refused to lay a wreath at an ANZAC Day service in Perth.
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Anne Aly asserted that she was "insulted by the allegation she refused to lay a wreath".
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Anne Aly has stated she believes in marriage equality, is economically conservative and "more left" on social policies, believes in a strict separation of church and state, defends the rights of women to wear a hijab if they choose, though she does not wear one herself, and that she demonstrated against the Iraq war.
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Anne Aly defended the government's position by saying "I think just saying to recognize Palestinian state without any context is in some ways tokenistic".
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Anne Aly's current husband is a former police officer and Canadian ice hockey player David Allen.
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Anne Aly has an investment property in Wilson in Western Australia.