United Kingdom

Walking a Tightrope: Women and Veiling in the United Kingdom by Ayesha Salma Kariapper examines the ways in which public debates over the headscarf and the full-face veil have shaped the strategies of women from Muslim communities, strategies developed to deal with the limitations imposed on them in the name of religion, culture, tradition and identity within the community, and with racism and exclusion from mainstream society. You can now download the book for free!

 

Exciting news.

Deeyah Khan's fascinating documentary about the Council of Ex-Muslims in Britain and the discrimination they have faced in the UK and abroad has been shortlisted for the Asian Media Awards in Investigative Journalism.

Huda Jawad is a WLUML networker based in London, United Kingdom.  She recently spoke at the Inspiring Migrant Women Conference in London.  Below is the text of her speech, which drew partly upon the reflections she wrote for our 16 Days of Activism in 2013.  The text of the speech was originally published on Huda’s website www.hudajawad.org

Text of Migrant Woman Conference Speech 2 May 2015 Huda Jawad ©

I was born in Baghdad and left Iraq at the age of two. I grew up in the United Arab Emirates and Syria before coming to settle as a teenager in London in the late eighties. My parents were political activists during the time of Saddam Hussein and fled Iraq after the death sentence was imposed on them in absentia. We travelled throughout the Middle East and seemed that we were constantly on the move.

On 24th April 2015, TEDxExter will be happening, with the theme "Taking the Long View".  During the morning connections on "Global Connection", WLUML Board member Karima Bennoune will be appearing via video at 12.19pm BST, giving a follow-up to last year's talk, "When People of Muslim Heritage Challenge Fundamentalism." Also of interest to WLUML will be Chetan Bhatt's talk about origin myths and fundamentalisms, given at 11.59am BST.

Watch the Livestream of the event.

Along with the other members of the Women's Alliance for Kurdistan, Iraq and Syria, Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) condemns the terrorism charges against Silan Ozcelik for allegedly trying to join the fight against ISIS.

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On Tuesday 13th January 2015, women’s rights groups, including Southall Black Sisters, One Law for All, Nari Diganta and the Iranian & Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), met with Mark Stobbs, the Law Society’s Director of Legal Policy at the SBS office. Our organisations welcomed the Law Society’s decision to withdraw its guidance on ‘Sharia’ compliant wills that endorsed discrimination against women and children. We also thanked the Law Society for making a public apology. The Law Society showed that it had listened to the voices of BME women’s rights campaigners and other secular organisations that had been alarmed by the original decision.

The press release shown below was issued today by the Law Society in the United Kingdom, announcing their withdrawal of a practice note issuing guidance for writing 'Sharia-compliant' wills.  

In a letter to the Lawyers' Secular Society, the Law Society stated:

Efua Dorkenoo, widely seen as the mother of the global movement to end female genital mutilation, has died after undergoing treatment for cancer, her family have confirmed. She was 65. Dorkenoo – known affectionately to many as “mama Efua” – was a leading light in the movement to bring an end to FGM for more than 30 years, campaigning against the practice since the 1980s.

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