LAHA

In an act that has sparked outrage among Egyptian women’s rights activists, a controversial Islamic scholar filed a lawsuit against the minister of health protesting a recent ban on female circumcision, a practice referred to by rights groups as female genital mutilation (FGM). Egyptian Sheikh Youssif al-Badri claimed the ministerial decree violated the Egyptian […]

(From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail December 12, 2007 )
Late Monday night, one of those many conflicted Muslim teens died, succumbing to injuries she received at the hands of her own father, if the police version of events is true. Friends said the 16-year-old Mississauga teen, Aqsa Parvez, had enraged her parents by refusing to […]

(From the Chronicle Herald Editorials…)
WORLDWIDE outrage has rightly greeted reports that Saudi Arabia’s “justice” system recently sentenced a young woman, gang-raped by seven men, to 200 lashes for being alone with a male friend who was not related to her through blood or marriage.
We stand with and commend the actions of decent people like Nancy […]

When Rajaa Alsanea’s debut novel was released in Lebanon in late 2005, it created a sensation in the Middle East by portraying the private lives of young Saudi women in colloquial Arabic and relatively explicit detail. Now, English-language readers can see what the fuss was about.
Alsanea dives into the world of a group of women […]

This is the second-place winning essay in the recent HAMSA essay contest, written by Ahmad Ghashmary, the founder and director of LAHA (The New Mideast initiative for women rights).
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On August 31, 2006, Jordanian Supreme Court suspended Fatima Habib, 35, a Jordanian female judge, from her position as a judge. The decision came two days after […]

Even William Shakespeare doesn�t spare his efforts to warn us from the so-called honor killings. You might be surprised by my statement, but he really did. Don�t you remember Othello the Arab Prince who slaughtered his wife Desdemona just because of rumors about her cheating on him with another man ( his friend, Cassio)?. I […]