A website launched last month by Republican Assembly candidate Brandon Davis alleges his Democratic opponent, Hanadi Nadeem, a practicing Muslim, supports and admires Taliban sympathizers — a message critics have decried as Islamophobic and xenophobic.

Featuring mugshot-esque imagery, the website points to Nadeem’s past comments on social media praising a former prime minister of Pakistan and the activities of Pakistani-American professional groups she’s worked with. It’s topped by the headline “Extreme Hanadi Nadeem” and a cutout of Nadeem wearing a hijab — something she doesn’t always wear.

Davis' campaign placed signs with similar messaging in Las Vegas’ religiously diverse Summerlin-area Assembly District 34, calling Nadeem a “far left extremist” and “bad for Nevada.” The signs point back to the website.

“This type of rhetoric, what he is doing, is really putting my life and my family and particularly the Muslim community in danger,” Nadeem said in an interview with The Nevada Independent. “This is showing intolerance … He’s just grabbing stories from one side to another side and just trying to make the connection, but there’s no connection.”

The criticism comes as Nevada has experienced a 75 percent rise in hate crimes compared to 2023, with more than 75 percent of the hate crimes focused on race or ethnicity and nearly 9 percent centered on religious bias.

Nadeem, who is Pakistani American and has lived in Nevada for more than two decades, serves as a board member of the Nevada Equal Rights Commission.

“I believe in promoting unity, equality and inclusiveness,” Nadeem said. “His behavior reveals his lack of understanding and respect for the diversity and contributions of all the communities of color.”

Davis denied that the website is Islamophobic.

“We sourced publicly available pictures on Mrs. Nadeem’s Facebook page. These are just pictures that were found,” Davis said. “There’s no focus in anything that we put forth to Mrs. Nadeem’s religious preference.”

Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) described the website as “disgraceful campaign tactics” that are “dangerous and unacceptable.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) also condemned the messaging on social media as “disgusting Islamophobic attacks.”

“Let me be clear: Islamophobia has no place in our elections, in Nevada, or anywhere,” Cortez Masto said. “We’re proud to stand with Hanadi Nadeem and show her that Nevadans have her back.”

Paromita Pain, an associate professor at UNR’s Reynolds School of Journalism, said that while it’s fair to assess candidates based on their social media support of causes and people, it’s also important to evaluate their day-to-day actions and the context surrounding the support.

She said the website launched by Davis “plays on xenophobic and Islamophobic bias,” which can lead people to judge Muslims by the way they dress, such as viewing a woman who wears a burqa as more conservative and potentially leaning toward more extreme religious beliefs, even if that may not be true.

“The best way to weigh [Nadeem’s] candidature is to carefully examine the work she has done, what she has achieved and how viable her future plans are,” Pain said. “Actions matter more than words, just as measurable positive results trump posts on social media.”

Davis said he stands by the statement that Nadeem is “too extreme and too dangerous for the Nevada Assembly” because she has supported terrorist sympathizers.

“As a voter, as a Nevadan, a father, somebody engaged in the community, I would say yes, somebody that publicly supports terrorist sympathizers could be an issue for our state,” he said. “We're simply just providing some factual information that is well documented, and making sure that voters in our district know about that information so they can make the right choice in this election.”

A campaign spokesperson for Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who endorsed Davis in the race, did not respond to a request for comment about the website.

The claims

Davis’ accusations of support for Taliban sympathizers stem from two key arguments. 

The first is Nadeem’s public support on social media of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who the website says “urged the world to support the Taliban.” She shared a post on Facebook last year featuring a picture of Imran Khan and a heart emoji.

The website links to an article reporting Imran Khan said the world should support the new Taliban leaders in Afghanistan in 2021, instead of isolating them. The website also quotes Imran Khan as saying the Taliban had “broken the shackles of slavery (from the West).” Not mentioned on the website is the context contained within the same article that Khan was telling world leaders not to isolate Afghanistan and thereby spur more poverty in the country. 

Pain said Nadeem’s support of Imran Khan “needs to be examined in a very nuanced light,” because the former prime minister is greatly respected globally as a cricketing icon whose captaincy of the Pakistani cricket team led them to win the World Cup. She said Imran Khan becoming prime minister was looked on with hope, explaining that he was seen as having a Western, broad-minded perspective and viewed as someone who could make a positive difference. 

Pain noted, however, that in Pakistan, the military, not the prime minister’s office, has power.

In the past, Imran Khan has also said that the “broken the chains of slavery” line was taken out of context, noting that he was speaking in Urdu and “talking about getting rid of mental slavery,” referring to the West’s cultural imposition via English language education.

The website also notes that Imran Khan called Osama bin Laden, who organized the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11, a “martyr” and refused to call Bin Laden a terrorist during a TV interview. It also said he was “forced out of office after being arrested, charged, and convicted of corruption and terrorism,” though those charges took place after he was ousted from office during a time of political crisis.

Pain said a piece of important context for these claims is that the independent nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations has addressed the question of Pakistani officials cheering on the Taliban takeover by pointing out that Pakistan’s government and military “are not monolithic institutions, but rather groups with competing interests.” 

If an official doesn’t toe the line with the Pakistani military, she said, that can lead to imprisonment or worse.

“Nadeem’s support of Imran Khan is not to be viewed in a dark light,” Pain said, adding that when evaluating social media support expressed by candidates, it’s vital to account for the level of support, the explanation for that support and the group or individual being supported.

“Sometimes, when people are very young, they click or like something that is acceptable at that point in time but then later it comes back to haunt them,” she said. “The level of engagement is important. For example, did the person just like or retweet or repost content to show support or did they go all out posting new content in support, encouraging their friends and family and networks to repost and engage in depth?”

Nadeem said she expressed support for the former prime minister because of his philanthropic work, which includes establishing a cancer treatment hospital that serves patients regardless of their ability to pay.

“His philanthropic side, his nature to help the poor, that is why I was supporting him as a philanthropist, as a leader who is helping the community,” Nadeem said, adding, however, that she condemned him for his support of Russia attacking Ukraine.

She said she “strongly condemns” the Taliban and its restriction of women’s rights. Raised by a physician mother, she said her family upheld women’s empowerment and taught her to contribute to her community. 

The second part of the claims on the website are more tenuous, raising the question: “Is Hanadi Nadeem associated with Massod Khan, a terrorist sympathizer?”

The website does not explicitly say that Nadeem is associated with Massod Khan, a former ambassador to the U.S. from Pakistan whose appointment was blocked because of “possible terror links” and who members of Congress have called a “bonafide terrorist sympathizer.” Instead, it lays a trail of breadcrumbs, highlighting Nadeem’s role as a board member of the Pakistan-American Political Action Committee (PAC), which has donated to candidates of both major parties and whose president held an event at his residence in 2023 that Massod Khan attended. 

It also said that Nadeem was president of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) Alliance, which hosted an event in 2023 where Massod Khan addressed attendees. Nadeem said she was president of APPNA Alliance in 2018 and did not work with the group after she served her term.

She said APPNA Alliance may have hosted Khan because he was the U.S. ambassador then, but she didn’t have a role in the decision-making process and was not at either of the events referenced on the website.

The website also says that Nadeem supports “alleged antisemitic, disgraced officials and widely unpopular establishment Democrats,” specifically calling out Nadeem’s donations to former Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-NV), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Democratic President Joe Biden and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Asked whether the support of Kihuen was before news of sexual harassment allegations came to light and if donations to Clinton and Biden should disqualify candidates from running, Davis said he couldn’t speak to that.

“What I can speak to is a presidential candidate that lost an election and another candidate that was wildly unpopular before deciding not to run again, and Mrs. Nadeem showing support for those individuals,” Davis said. “Drawing conclusions or putting together correlations inside of that, I can't speak to that.”