violence and toward a peaceful transition to democracy.” Haj-Omar wrote for the TechChange website in October 2011 on the subject “What are Sudanese Youth Learning from Online Activism?” She argued in an October 2011 article that the current period of Sudanese history, beginning with the ascension to power of the National Congress Party, was “the darkest, not just for Sudanese citizens but for humanity as whole,” given that “after Hitler, Stalin and Mao it is Omar Al Bashir that has presided over the largest massacre in the history of mankind.” Nonetheless, many Sudanese see no alternative, their minds having been closed “in a box forbidding them to think critically and creatively[,] especially when it comes to questioning the relationship between the state and religion.” Haj-Omar wrote in The New York Times on March 1, 2012, that Sudan's ruling regime “cares only about maintaining its grip on power” and would thus “do anything to crush the new rebellion in the Nuba Mountains.” She called on the U.S. to “weigh the costs and benefits of its collaboration with the N.C.P. on national security and anti-terrorism issues, and consider a more serious and committed dialogue with Sudan's opposition groups about a future without the N.C.P.” Writing on September 16, 2013, about the August 27 arrest by the Public Order Police (POP) of activist and engineer Amira Osman “for refusing to pull up her head-scarf,” Haj-Omar noted that the POP were a product of the so-called “Civilization Project,” a government Islamization program “that reached into every aspect of Sudanese social life, and placed restrictions on long entrenched traditional norms such as private parties with music, mixing between the sexes and the making and consumption of alcohol.” The worst of these restrictions were those on women's clothing, maintained Haj-Omar, who stated that things had only grown worse since the 2011 separation of South Sudan. Haj-Omar admitted in a November 11, 2013, article that she and other regime opponents had previously been unprepared “for the scale of protest needed to effectively call for regime change,” the “popular revolt” of late September 2013 had “shifted the power dynamics in Sudan,” with the government's efforts to suppress resistance causing public rage to mount. Although the U.S., E.U., U.N., and other governments had condemned Khartoum’s brutality toward protesters, “the international community,” maintained Haj-Omar, seemed “to not be learning from its long engagement with Sudan,” in that it continued “to