It must be a drag to live in a strict Islamist regime: the legal system stems entirely from Islamic — sharia — law, in which adulterers are stoned to death, thieves have their hands chopped off, and the renunciation of Islam, or apostasy, is punishable by death. Liberal democracy? Gender equality and women’s rights? Forget … Read more
Throughout the media coverage in recent months of the tumultuous events in Egypt, little attention has been paid to Egyptian women, who may have the most to gain or to lose in any new political order that emerges in the country. Social media and dedicated Web sites are filling the gap for many women eager … Read more
After a week of political jockeying involving Egypt’s interim president, Adly Mahmud Mansour, the country’s military and a radical Islamist party that refused to accept Mohamed ElBaradei as prime minister, the former head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency was finally appointed deputy president for foreign affairs on July 9. In a compromise, … Read more
In the global annals of women’s rights defenders over the last half century, Nafis Sadik’s name will always rank high, though little may be known about her among the broad American public, focused as it usually is on Western feminists with Western issues. As head of the United Nations Population Fund in 1994, Sadik marshaled … Read more
