Activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied ‘blind’ to Islam’s treatment of women

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/activist-yassmin-abdelmagied-blind-to-islams-treatment-of-women/news-story/b9312e18fb0601744abdc86732c9351b

The Muslim activist who said on national television that Islam was “the most feminist religion” has been criticised by former prime minister Tony Abbott for being “blindfolded” during a taxpayer-funded speaking tour of the ­Middle East and Africa.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied triggered a debate over Islam and feminism after a fiery exchange with senator Jacqui Lambie on the effects of sharia during ­Monday’s Q&A on ABC TV.

“If she’s right that ‘Islam is a feminist religion’, how come such terrible things are done to women in its name?” Mr Abbott said.

The Australian revealed ­yesterday that the federal government paid for Ms Abdel-Magied to tour some of the world’s most repressive Islamic regimes last November, promoting her book about being a Sudanese-­Egyptian-Australian Muslim woman who wears the hijab.

Mr Abbott said Ms Abdel-­Magied was “entitled to her view” but “she must have been wearing a blindfold on her taxpayer-­funded tour”.

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Her views of Islam as a feminist religion also appear to be at odds with her co-member of the Australian government-funded Council for Arab Australian Relations, Joumanah El Matrah.

In a 2015 submission to Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence, Ms El Matrah, who is also chief executive of the Australian Muslim Women’s Human Rights Centre, said there were “significant problems” in how Islam was interpreted, which caused violence against women.

Ms El Matrah has previously declared that Muslim women and children would be “extremely ­disadvantaged” by any form of sharia court. “Among Muslims, the interpretations and application of ­Islamic doctrine in relation to women varies considerably and, given the diversity of Muslims globally, there is a lack of consensus as to the status of women, and this has a direct impact on their treatment in Islam,” she said. “Orthodox interpretative frameworks allocate women an inferior status to men and this directly affects marital and family relationships, rendering women vulnerable to violence and abuse.”

She said there were “significant problems of interpretation of Islamic doctrine relating to the status of women, how they are to be treated in the home and the level of control permissible by a husband over his wife”.

The Australian’s coverage of Ms Abdel-Magied’s speaking tour was raised in parliament ­yesterday during a debate about section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, on the same day parliament also debated a bill proposed by Senator Lambie to restrict the wearing of the burqa.

Greens senator Nick McKim launched an attack on this newspaper yesterday for publishing details of Ms Abdel-Magied’s tour of the Middle East and North Africa. “It’s a straight, simple character assassination by The Australian, as they always do … when someone dares raise their head above the parapet and make comments with which they disagree,” Senator McKim said. “It is a disgusting, race-baiting rag.”

Liberal backbencher Eric Abetz described Senator McKim’s statements as “outlandish”. “It is a statement of fact that in many of the parts of the Middle East where Ms Abdel-Magied visited, women would be stoned to death for seeking an education and people even suspected of being gay are thrown off buildings,” Senator Abetz said.

Mr Abbott commended The Australian for bringing “common sense to this discussion”.

Senator Lambie said yesterday Muslim women had been “emboldened” by her call to ban the face-covering burqa. “I’ve been told by this person who came to visit me and I trust and respect very much that these Muslim women have been emboldened and given hope by my public comments and the provisions within this bill,” she said during a speech in favour of her bill to ban the burqa yesterday.

The ban is linked to the nat­ional terrorism threat level, kicking in when the threat reaches “probable”. The threat level is currently at “probable”.

Commenting on the debate about feminism and Islam, Australian Muslim Women’s Human Rights Centre chairwoman Tasmeen Chopra said anti-women issues in relation to Islam were “not text-based”.

“To be honest, in Australian Muslims’ lives right now the argument about feminism is not front and centre,” she said.

Sheik Shady Alsuleiman, who attended Malcolm Turnbull’s Iftar dinner last year with Ms Abdel-Magied and has made comments in a lecture saying gay people spread diseases, said last year that Allah gave “authority for men over women” but this meant that they must be “dutiful”.

Sociologist and feminist Eva Cox said there were good and bad parts of Islam and any other religion but that a “farrago of popular nonsense” was responsible for hijacking the debate about the protection of women as a means to impugn all Muslims.

freediver wrote on Feb 17^th, 2017 at 5:15pm:


Try reading your own articles for a change FD.

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polite_gandalf wrote on Feb 18^th, 2017 at 11:22am:



Well that has to stop for a start, we want less muslims in Aus, not more. If she was to promote Aus to the world, or more likely, islam to gullible lefties, then she can do it with her own money.

She is nothing more than a scam artist ripping off the Australian taxpayer instead of paying her own way. Who would have thought that a muslim would do such a thing.

polite_gandalf wrote on Feb 18^th, 2017 at 11:45am:



Were you not aware that she made it all the way back here to go on Q&A and tell everyone the islam is the most feminist religion in the world. Now what type of cretin would believe that? That's right a lefty.


Since when has this apologist become our ME trade negotiator, because that is news to me, and probably her too.


She is scamming the Australian taxpayer for free money, nothing more.


Didn't we have to stop exporting to a few islamic countries due to the vile level of cruelty they like to inflict on animals as they kill them?

polite_gandalf wrote on Feb 18^th, 2017 at 12:25pm:



So pretty much every single muslim man has either not read the koran or chooses to not give a sh1t of what it has to say about the treatment of women.

Because muslims tend to treat their women like sh1t and the 'more muslim' they are the more sh1tty the treatment.


Pretty much not worth the paper it is written on. You don't hear the catholics crapping on about being the most child friendly religion on the planet, do you? Because it isn't, regardless of what their bible says.

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What a load of rubbish...  Do Christian men need to have their women dressed in tents to stop themselves from raping them?  To stop other men from losing control of their sexual desires?

Honestly the whole belief you posted there is a load of rubbish.  Perhaps it is what Muslim men think of women.

Grendel wrote on Feb 18^th, 2017 at 12:47pm:


Rather than blustering hot air all the time Grendel, perhaps you would do better to try refute the actual points that I make.

Lets start with inheritance rights: do you deny that unlike the Bible, the Quran stipulates women's rights to inheritance in the case where there are also eligible males?

BigOl64 wrote on Feb 18^th, 2017 at 1:25pm:


This is what progressive muslims are up against: demanded to 'reform' their religion, and when they try to do so - by arguing that muslims should adopt a more progressive interpretation of the Quran, they are "vile human beings" for daring to suggest a progressive interpretation of the Quran exists.