by Phyllis Chesler

The other day, a pediatric nurse in New York City refused to dance with Mbarek Lafrem, a Moroccan man, in a New York City bar. What did Lafrem do? He followed her into the women’s bathroom where he attempted to rape and savagely beat her. The woman was found unconscious and is now hospitalized. She required 50 stitches to close just one of her lacerations; she also suffered a broken eye socket, a broken nose, skull fractures, and a busted jaw.

The media pointedly refrain from telling us that he is a Muslim, but with a name like “Mbarek” or ‘Mubarak,” what religion are we talking about? Lafrem now claims that she started it, that the nurse “berated him when he barged into the women’s restroom shortly after she’d rebuffed him on the dance floor.” … Continue reading…

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by Phyllis Chesler

By now, we have all heard about Nujood Ali, the incredibly heroic ten year girl in Yemen who fled her abusive husband and demanded a divorce. This act was the first of its kind in a country where girls as young as eight are given away in marriage.

We want her as an ally. We want her counterparts in the Muslim world as allies. We want Mukhtaran Bibi on our side. She is the young Pakistani woman who was gang-raped by her alleged social superiors in order to cover up their other crimes. She escaped. She was not silenced by shame. She did not kill herself. Unlike Phoolan Devi, India’s Bandit Queen (a girl after my own heart), Bibi did not join a gang of outlaws and then exact personal revenge. Despite numerous death threats, Mukhtaran Bibi legally pursued the criminals — and won. Continue reading…

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by Phyllis Chesler

In Turkey — a country which was nearly accepted as a member by the European Union — a father and grandfather recently buried Medine Memi, a sixteen-year-old girl, alive — and all because she was seen talking to boys. Medine was repeatedly beaten. The police did not help her. When the men buried her she was “alive and fully conscious.”

This savage, heartless, primitive act is the ultimate, logical consequence of burying women alive — shrouding them — while they still roam the earth. One becomes claustrophobic under the burqa, until one gets used to being seen as a ghost, invisible, non-human, dead.

All this past week, I received news of this atrocity in Turkey. I refrained from writing about it. What can one say? There is nothing to say. There is everything to do. No one is doing anything. Continue reading…

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by Phyllis Chesler

And so, despite the all the naysayers and second-guessers, the lawyers in the Rifqa Bary case have negotiated a reasonable and potentially life-saving settlement which will allow Rifqa to remain in state custody until she becomes 18 (which will happen in August), at which time she herself will decide whether or not she wishes to be reunited with her family.

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by Phyllis Chesler

When it comes to honor killings and honor-related violence, America had better start learning a few things from Europe.

On October 20, 2009, near Phoenix, Arizona, Noor Al-Maleki’s father, Iraqi-born Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki, ran over his 20-year-old daughter with a two-ton jeep. He struck down her female companion and protector as well. His daughter died. Although she was seriously wounded, Amal Edan Khalaf, the other woman, survived. Just like Yaser Said, who fled Dallas after honor murdering his two daughters (and who has not yet been found), Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki also fled, first to Mexico, and then to England. However, he was captured, extradited back to Arizona, and charged with first-degree murder.

Well done! Continue reading…

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by Phyllis Chesler

The other day, a twenty-year-old woman was sold at an open auction in Badani Bhutto, Pakistan. Her brothers divided up the money. No one condemned this shameless and abominable act.

It is an act that haunts me.

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By Phyllis Chesler

The Saudi mutawas (”morality police”) are terrifying. Like vultures, they swoop down on their vulnerable prey, especially women, and then send them straight to Hell. The “long beards” curse and beat their female prisoner, totally terrify her; then, they throw her into a dark, medieval dungeon, (assume the worst here). They remove her only in order to gang-rape and torture her — all presumably in the name of Islam. Her crime? In one instance, although the woman was a foreign national, she dared to take a taxi downtown without a male escort. Continue reading…

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By Phyllis Chesler

These photos show what happens to real women who wear the Islamic Veil. The photos depict horrifying hate and the unbearable suffering it inflicts upon female innocents. The photos were taken by Emilio Morenatti of the Associated Press. The text is based on work done by Nicholas Kristof — one of the few people at the New York Times whose work I am proud to quote. You may find them HERE. (Thanks to Yehuda for calling this to my attention).

What are we seeing?

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By Phyllis Chesler

The Canadian government has just revamped its citizenship guide for immigrants. The document is titled “The Rights and Responsibilities of Canadian Citizenship.” According to Canada’s National Post:

“In Canada, men and women are equal under the law,” the document says. “Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.”

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By Phyllis Chesler

Last week, the Iraqi father who drove a two ton jeep over his daughter in Arizona for being “too westernized” high-tailed it out of town, drove down to Mexico where he abandoned his vehicle and caught a flight to London. UK Port of Entry authorities denied him entry, contacted US authorities and placed him back on a plane to the US. Almaleki was arrested when his plane landed in Atlanta, then returned to Arizona where he now sits in jail.

“Agencies involved included the US Marshalls Office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, Arizona Department of Public Safety, officials in the United Kingdom, and officials from the Nogales and Sonora, Mexico Police.”

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By Phyllis Chesler

We are entering an all-spin zone, a wild, weird and spooky season and I am not talking about Halloween.

With a few exceptions, the mainstream media continue to kill stories about honor killings and attempted honor killings in North America. How often did you read stories about the honor killings that took place in Toronto (2007), Dallas (2008), Atlanta (2008), Oak Forest, Illinois (2008), Alexandria (2008), Buffalo (2009), and Kingston, Canada (2009) — on and on, until the most recent attempted honor killing in Phoenix? Continue reading…

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by Cinnamon Stillwell*

In thinking about women’s rights, sharia law, or Islamic law, doesn’t typically come to mind.

Yet, according to a survey conducted by Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and appointee to President Obama’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the two are closely intertwined. Her survey alleges that a majority of Muslim women believe sharia law should either be the primary source or one source of legislation in their countries, while viewing Western personal freedoms as harmful to women.

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By Phyllis Chesler

Not again. Ah, yes again and again until we have won this war of ideas.

Nonie Darwish, the warmest, sanest, least prejudiced Palestinian/Egyptian whom I know, has both been attacked and has not been defended by the administrative elite at the Whittier College Law School where she is scheduled to speak later today. According to Steven Emerson, the Muslim Student Association on campus defamed Darwish and tried to stop or at least delay her presentation.

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By Phyllis Chesler

The mother who lured her two young daughters, Sarah and Amina, to their tragic deaths at the hand of their father, Yaser Said, now regrets what she did. Downplaying her own role, or rather, insisting that she is innocent, Patricia (”Tissy”) Owens calls the murder of her daughters an “honor killing” by an “evil man.” Despite years of paternal child abuse at home, “Tissy” now insists that she had no idea that Yaser was actually going to kill the girls whom he sexually and physically abused and whose “too Western” ways enraged him.

Sarah and Amina refused to marry older, unknown men from Egypt in arranged marriages. They had American ways, academic ambitions, and Christian friends, including Christian boyfriends. Unthinkable! And, like Rifqa Bary, they knew they were in danger and so they ran away. Their mother sweet talked them back home. They were dead within hours. Their father has never been found. Continue reading…

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By Phyllis Chesler

The outpouring of support for my position in favor of universal women’s rights both humbles and strengthens me. This struggle is not about me nor is it about Naomi Wolf who so unwisely went to war over one blog of mine which critiqued her written views about the Islamic veil and the oppression/repression of Muslim women.

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