On Friday, Professor Tariq Ramadan, who is arguably Europe’s most influential Muslim public intellectual of the last twenty years, was charged in Paris with two counts of rape and put under criminal investigation. Since these allegations first surfaced last October, Professor Ramadan has repeatedly denied them. The campaign group, “Justice…
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December 1999: A man sent a letter to the Lahore Police confessing to the murder of a hundred children. Following an unsuccessful manhunt (the largest in Pakistan’s history) the man surrendered himself at the offices of Pakistan’s best known newspaper. Between 1985 and 1999, Javed Iqbal Mughal had abducted, sodomized and murdered…
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The vast majority of women are familiar with a certain sinking feeling. That feeling like you’ve been punched in the gut, coupled with horror and fear. We know the shaky feeling you get when someone takes a good, long look at you from top to bottom, undressing you with their eyes….
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops swept into eastern Aleppo on Monday, recapturing nearly all of the rebel held areas. With the help of Russian forces and Shiite militias under Iranian command, the regime launched a relentless assault has resulted in wanton slaughter. As the 100,000 people packed into roughly five square…
Read MoreIn January 2015, a Stanford undergraduate student sexually assaulted a young woman. The woman, unconscious at the time, was assaulted behind a dumpster. Two graduate students riding past the scene were able to stop the assault and detain the perpetrator – Stanford champion swimmer Brock Turner – until the police…
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TRIGGER WARNING This article or section contains information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors. Up until a few years ago, Jian Ghomeshi was known to many Canadians as a singer, musician and radio broadcaster. In 2014, he gained notoriety for a much more sinister reason….
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For my sisters everywhere who have suffered, or are suffering, sexual abuse. My sisters. Your little shoulders were meant to carry the lightness of innocence; the wonder of childhood. Your souls were meant to soar; tethered to the Divine, far above this lowly place. But a heavy burden was thrust…
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When I first began writing a story whose protagonist was the victim of date rape, my intention was to clarify that any social stigmas attached to such a woman are unjust and outlandish. In my naivety, I thought that these stigmas only existed in conservative cultures where marriage within the…
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Recently, a friend shared with me that her undergraduate Muslim student group had declined to cosponsor a Take Back the Night event – an internationally held rally or candlelight vigil that speaks out against rape, sexual assault, and sexual abuse. The reason given was that a Muslimah in the group…
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Whenever the epidemic of rape in Egypt makes the news, I am destined to think of Joyce Carol Oates. Last summer, the author took to twitter to question whether Islam was responsible for the widespread incidence of sexual assault in Egypt, an argument people continue to make today. As…
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