[…] The practice of monitoring and reporting on religious freedom “reflects a belief that religious liberty is not just a local practice in this country but is something like a fundamental entitlement of human beings regardless of the form of government under which they happen to live,” William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nongovernmental policy research organization, told USINFO September 18.

[…] By agreeing to live with each other, students also agree to accept each other regardless of their religious beliefs, Dalia Gheith, a Muslim and a freshman at Rutgers' all-female Douglass College, said in a USINFO webchat on April 4. “We try to understand each other's points of view and learn more about each other's backgrounds.” Gheith and several other residents of the house participated in the hourlong webchat.

[…] U.S. Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes has welcomed the formation of the new Ambassadorial Washington Group of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). “We share an agenda to support the positive contributions and values of Muslim countries and citizens,” she told participants at March 15 ceremonies launching the group in Washington. Hughes leads public diplomacy and public affairs efforts at the State Department and is a close adviser to President Bush.

[…] "That's a difficult position for a young student to be in, facing down her school principal and administration," said Gonzales. "I don't know how I would have reacted when I was in sixth grade. But Nashala stood up for herself, and she had the Department of Justice to back her up." In closing his speech, the attorney general returned to the story of Nashala, "who knew that she shouldn't have to choose between her education and her faith."