Despite her story being told in a series of media alerts posted a few weeks ago on Racialicious, Katha Politt’s blog at The Nation, and here at MMW, Nazia Quazi’s problem is not making the headlines it should. Dual Indian-Canadian citizen Quazi has been held in Saudi Arabia for the past two years due to […]

The Quebec niqab thing keeps going and going (ugh), and I’m still avoiding talking about media coverage of the issue head-on, mostly because I think I’ll explode if I think more about the absurdity of it all, and I’ve written on niqab so much already that there’s not a lot else to say.  This post at […]

This was written by Azmat Khan and originally published at AltMuslimah. After years of critique from local female activists, why did one of the most powerful media platforms for women’s empowerment, Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast, preclude the more meaningful ways to understand the complex lives of women in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Their recent summit […]

I am so, so sick of talking about the niqab.  So I’m not really going to, despite the fact that the Canadian province of Quebec recently introduced a bill that, if made law, would force everyone to show their face when dealing with provincial government bodies.  If anyone else has intelligent insight on recent Quebec-related […]

In early February, a story broke about a briefing being given to Belgian soldiers departing for Afghanistan. In this briefing, the speaker notably made the following points, as related by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir: “[Having a] girl to a Muslim usually means that the man has poor sperm quality. I’m not joking. Manly men make […]

Mona Sahlin, leader of the Swedish Social Democratic party (SAP), is known by many names among her opponents. Though Sahlin is not Muslim, one of the most common nicknames for her is “Mona Muslim.” This appellation might suggest a cartoon character, or perhaps a Sesame Street muppet, but behind it  lies a deepening anxiety about […]

This is an edited version of an article published at Café Pyala. You can read the article in its entirety at their website. Oh, shoot. Here we go again with coverage of Fashion Week in Pakistan. Can we do anything in Pakistan without it being linked in some way to either appeasing the Taliban or […]

There are certain stories newspapers here in the U.K. love. Anything that can be classed as “a waste of taxpayer’s money” is guaranteed to find its way into print, even more so if it involves something “frivolous” like artwork. And, as has been noticed previously at MMW, the media also has a fascination with Muslim […]

In a reversal of Egypt’s recent trends regarding women in the judiciary, Egypt’s State Council voted this month to ban the appointment of female judges to the council. Despite the fact that Tahani El Gebaly was appointed to be Egypt’s first female judge in 2003, and 31 more women were appointed as judges in 2007, […]

Headscarves are the hot talking point in French politics again. But on this occasion, we aren’t talking about girls getting kicked out of high school or women getting kicked out of mayors’ offices. No, the latest uproar comes about Ms. Ilham Moussaïd, a candidate from the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) in France’s upcoming regional elections […]