The New Muslim suffragettes of the United Kingdom

An increasing number of Muslim women activists are receiving death threats, fatwas and even hate-mail from extremist male and female Muslims. Their crime: Rescuing fellow Muslim women from violent and life threatening situations.

With heightened media sensitivity surrounding forced marriage, honour based violence and domestic violence we are all too aware of the suffering experienced by vulnerable and marginalised Muslim women. But we know little about the Muslim women activists who risk their lives to fight for the rights of oppressed Muslim women. These women are the New Muslim Suffragettes (NMS) of The United Kingdom.

As wives and mothers themselves, they stand alone in their communities and apart from other prominent Muslim organisations, in offering sanctuary and support for vulnerable and marginalised women. The NMS provide refuge, advocacy and access to the British legal and welfare system for women whose daily lives consist of beatings, imprisonment, torture and even marital rape, as well as the mental health ramifications that unfold over time.

In fact there has been an exponential growth in Muslim women activists in the form of charitable women rights organisations. These organisations have emerged post 9/11 as a response to misogynist and extremist views which are contaminating the Muslim community. Like the suffragette movement in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, Muslim women activists are collectively gaining momentum in fighting for women’s rights in oppressive and patriarchal contexts. But facing fierce patriarchal resistance -  akin to that experienced by the early Suffragettes – sympathy for the NMS does not always convert to action.

In seeking justice for Muslim women whose human rights have been eroded through hyper-conservative interpretations of Islam, the NMS turn to British Law. But in affording marginalised Muslim women their rights the NMS are perceived by extremist Muslims as “feminists”, a term loaded in the Muslim world with connotations of modernity, resistance and westernisation, and perhaps more importantly a term which challenges the patriarchal underpinning of Islam dictated by extremist Muslims.

So they face a backlash in the form of persecution, intimidation and death threats. Fearing for their lives the NMS are forced into hiding and prevented from undertaking the very work they set out to achieve – to highlight and prevent the gross abuse of human rights many Muslim women suffer. Instead the NMS risk becoming the vulnerable and marginalised Muslim women that they originally set out to help and support. It’s time for the public to be aware of the plight of the NMS in the United Kingdom. This is their story.

My mobile phone rang, I could hear heavy breathing and a deep male voice – “I know where you live, I’m going to find you, and then I’m going to chop your legs off for taking my daughter away from me”. This NMS received this threat along with a threat to bomb her car after she rescued a young woman from forced marriage and domestic violence. Fearing for her life, this NMS must check her car for bombs each day and cannot leave her home without a panic alarm.

For the NMS, life has become intolerable. Sara Khan, from the counter-extremist and gender equality consultancy Inspire and Shereen Williams from the Henna Foundation spoke about the persecution perpetrated against them and work colleagues often directed at family members. According to Diana Nammi founder of the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), the main motive behind the death threats is an extremist belief that the work of the NMS is shaming and dishonouring the Muslim community, particularly in cases where women are supported by the NMS in seeking legal redress for the wrongs inflicted upon them often by their own family members.

Somewhat unsurprisingly the threats perpetrated by extremist Muslims cover an array of appalling crimes including obscene sexual offences, which have become an increasing problem in the blogosphere and according to Shaista Gohir (MBE)  the NMS are frequently accused of “destroying Islam” or “corrupting our women” and like the Suffragettes over a century ago – they are accused of being “mad”. While these accusations may appear banal and mundane to secular ears, they are devastating to women activists of faith who are accused of being apostates. In this case, these accusations lead to threats of Shaista Gohir’s throat being slashed.

Figures released by IKWRO reveal that nearly 3000 incidents of ‘honour’ based violence were recorded by police forces across the UK in 2010, with an average increase of 47% across the 12 police forces which also provided data for 2009. It’s clear from these statistics that the NMS have an invaluable role to play in discovering and tackling violence against women. But the sad reality is the NMSs are confronting these prevalent issues alone following a lack of support from the Government, attacks from extremist Muslims and turning of the other cheek by non-Muslim women’s rights organisations.

The early Suffragettes would turn in their graves if they knew that the sacrifices they made to bring about gender equality are now being systematically eroded through the gross misogynistic practices of an increasing number of hyper-conservative Muslims. However, there are a number of Muslim scholars, Imams, non-Muslim politicians and non-Muslim charitable organisations who are supporting the rebuttal of this systematic abuse of women’s human rights. It is hoped that non-Muslim women’s rights organisations, wider society and the Government will unite with the NMS in developing social, financial and legislative remedies to protect British women.

By Michelle Brooks and Charlotte Proudman

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• Katie Shapland

  Linoleum Surfer – I have given you a ‘Like’ as I agree with much of your post. I would like to place it in better context, however, by understanding your views better. Is the writing that you have done about these issues easily accessible?

• The Linoleum Surfer

  Thank you.  There are a few articles (some serious, some less so) at [my name] dot com.  ”Arabs Got Prostitution”, “Save the Clitoris” “A Decade of Denial”, “The Electric Mufti”, “In Memory of Reason”, “Exploiting Brown Insecurity”, “World’s Dumbest Terrorists” are the least shameful in my opinion, and when combined with my user name, will pop up easily on your search engine.

• Katie Shapland

  Well, you have my attention with the topics! I must away for a brief while, but on my return, I shall pursue, peruse and be back to respond further. Thank you for being so open.

• http://www.google.com/search?q=penghu&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=L8bYTq-CKIrGmQW9u7TxCw&ved=0CGoQsAQ&biw=1280& Pescadorean

  The islamofascists (yes, even the moderate, closet ones) keep whinging “you must respect our religion”.

  Just to set the record straight – I’m sick of being told we should respect Islam. WTF should we?

  OK, islamofascists, listen up;

  The only respect we should have is for your freedom to worship whatever deity, idol or supernatural being you like. You are equally free to worship the flying spaghetti monster. That right we respect.

  But there is no reason why we should have even an iota of respect for Islam if it pleases us not, OK? (& blackbum99, that includes you as well).

  As alien as the concept may sound to you, its call ‘religious tolerance’.

  (And for many, the operative word is tolerance. Because the most you can expect is to be tolerated – however begrudgingly).

• malcompris

  I’m not sure I see what you’re driving at. You seem to be saying that bad things do happen to Muslim women but you seem, to resent it when white folk comment upon them. Muslims foreited the right to live uncommented upon when they came to the West. As for the perception of women always being unwilling victims of religious intolerance, this is corroborated from the multitude of incidents from the West, and far more from Asia, reported by women. It’s called evidence based reasoning  and it’s something the West does very well.
  “Women receiving “fatwas” in the post?  Why would receiving a scholarly religious opinion be an issue?”. No one likes a smartass. If a ‘fatwa’ is a scholarly opinion so be it, but recent events have, understandably, led Europeans to understand that’s it’s synonymous with a death threat.
  Your post exemplifies a Muslim who’s developed a strong and effective nomenclature in demanding to be left uncriticised, but weak in addressing & resolving the problems underlying the criticisms.

• The Linoleum Surfer

  I don’t resent anyone commenting on bad things happening.  I resent it when they use defamatory or inaccurate terminology to define a sixth of humanity by those “bad things”.  

  “Being a smartass” is how you define correcting an error?  Who is sensitive about others’ comments now?!  Yes, ever since the “fatwa” from a particular Iranian scholar saying that Salman Rushdie deserved to be executed for apostasy, that word has been widely familiar.  So much so that perhaps, twenty-three years after that shameful episode, and given the wider discussions about Islam that we see today, “informed” commentators like the author should surely know their apples and oranges by now.

  As for being “weak in addressing” problems, that’s a pretty bold statement about a complete stranger.  Your characterisation of Muslims as foreign (“when they came to the West”) and non-Muslims as “white folks”, indicate some equally important problems to be addressed at your end.

• The Linoleum Surfer

  Calling people “fascists” for exercising their “freedom to worship”, is your idea of “tolerance” is it?  Tolerate as “begrudgingly” as you like, but until you recognise that tolerance and respect can only exist in unison, you will continue to sound shrill and bigoted.

  I bet you’re nice in person though.  Why does the internet bring out the worst in people, eh?