Famous Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan has been accused of rape by at least three adult women as well as having been accused of having  sexual relationships with underage students while he was teaching in Geneva. As a Muslim living in Switzerland, and who didn’t run in his circles, I was warned about his “close relationships” […]

Trigger warning: mention of sexual harassment/abuse, violence against children, Islamophobia and gendered violence. The video in question has not been linked. On November 9th, a video of girl’s hijab being ripped off in class began circulating around internet. Apparently, the young woman’s teacher posted the video on his Snapchat account, though she later denied posting […]

*A note on Malay naming conventions: President Halimah is being called “President Yacob” is Anglophone media outlets. From a Malay perspective this is is odd because “Yacob” is  her father’s name and not a family name. Therefore, it is more appropriate to use Madam Halimah or President Halimah. Click here for more information on Malay naming […]

On September 26, the government of Saudi Arabia issued a royal decree announcing that Saudi women will be able to acquire drivers’ licenses and drive legally in the near future. Although the specifics of the policy and legal shift have yet to be released (Saudi women are not yet driving),  the announcement has been well-covered […]

Trigger and Content Warning: Colonial Violence, Racism, Anti-Blackness, Anti-Indigeneity, Gender-based Violence, Militarized Violence, Islamophobia, anti-Refugee Rhetoric. In the past year Rohingya Muslims have been constantly featured by Western media outlets, particularly as their persecution in Burma/Myanmar has been deemed to be “ethnic cleansing” by the United Nations. The Rohingya community, which is primarily Muslim but also […]

On September 7, Mexico and Guatemala experienced the most destructive earthquake since the eighteenth century. Whereas Mexico City remained almost intact, the areas closer to the epicentre, including Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guatemala, suffered incredible damages. Media coverage of the issue has been quite poor, to be honest, focusing primarily on Juchitán, an important economic Zapotec […]

I will start this post positioning myself as a cissexual and heterosexual Binizaa–Latinx woman who converted to Islam about ten years ago. I am also an immigrant: a settler to the territories of the Algonquin, Cree, Anishinabe, Haudenosaunee and Métis nations, among others. The positioning is important because to discuss white supremacy is not only […]

We live in violent times… Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States, and Canada is battling its own white supremacist demons, as we see with figures like Kellie Leitch. At the same time anonymous acts of everyday violence against women, LGBTIQ folks, people of color, Indigenous and Black communities, immigrants and religious minorities […]

Malaysia recently concluded its fifth peaceful democratic protest last month to call for a ‘cleaner’ electoral system in the country. Organised by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih, or ‘clean’ in the Malay language), the rally aimed to raise awareness of systemic corruption in government institutions and of the current polling process. Most […]

Four years ago, I wrote about some school girls who refused to take communal swimming lessons in the Swiss city of Basel.  As a recap, from my previous article: In Basel, the families of five Muslim girls in elementary school were fined upon appeal to the Swiss Supreme Court for refusing that their daughters take […]