Tajik state television has aired a documentary that alleges that prostitutes in the country have been wearing Islamic veils to earn more money.   Once a month, Muslim women gather in a bright open space inside a brick building near downtown Los Angeles. They come for jumu’ah or Friday prayer. This “all women’s mosque” has […]

Few people would agree that pornography has hardly been an indicator of freedom or political stability. Some more would also agree that it is not a universal symbol of advancement or female empowerment. Nonetheless, this week Tarek El-Tablawy, an Associated Press writer, affirmed that pornography availability mirrors Iraq’s improvements in security and politics. More surprising, […]

This post was written by Farah Banihali and originally published at Nuseiba. For another perspective on Persson’s documentary, check out Alicia’s article from a few weeks ago. Iran has always been a country I’d love to sit down and read up on. When I first started university, I wrote a (terrible) essay on the causes […]

For a relatively high-brow TV channel, BBC4 is known for providing top quality programs and dramas. So when the BBC commemorated the 30th anniversary of Islamic Revolution in Iran, I became glued to the channel’s string of intriguing documentaries on all things Iranian, post-1979. There were plenty on Iran-US nuclear politics and the fall of […]

I saw the movie Taken with my friend and her husband the other day and walked out of the theater feeling scared. It’s not a horror movie; the plot focuses on the sex trafficking of young women. The buyers are rich Arab men, of course. I wanted to be angry with the filmmakers for portraying […]