Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning columnist and an international public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues. She is based in New York.

She is a columnist for Egypt’s independent daily Al Masry Al Youm, Qatar’s Al Arab and Israel’s The Jerusalem Report. Her opinion pieces have been published frequently in the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, Denmark’s Politiken and she is a frequent media analyst.

In 2009, the European Commission awarded her Samir Kassir Prize for Freedom of the Press for opinion writing.

Mona was born in Egypt and has lived in the U.K, Saudi Arabia and Israel. She calls herself a proud liberal Muslim. In 2005, she was named a Muslim Leader of Tomorrow by the American Society for Muslim Advancement. She blogs at www.monaeltahawy.com/blog.

Blog Entries by Mona Eltahawy

Gaddafi's "Green Revolution" Turns 40

1 Comments | Posted August 31, 2009 | 06:33 PM (EST)


My one and only visit to Libya was exactly 13 years ago to cover the 27th anniversary of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's coup. There were no flights into or out of the country, still under UN sanctions. Attending the celebrations were heads of African states Gaddafi had turned to in frustration...

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If Only the Uighurs Were Buddhist and China Was Israel

49 Comments | Posted July 8, 2009 | 04:49 PM (EST)


NEW YORK - Pity the Uighurs -- the wrong kind of minority, the wrong kind of Muslims, fighting the wrong kind of enemy.

For years, Uighurs -- a Turkic people who are largely Muslim -- complained of economic, cultural and religious discrimination under the harsh fist of Beijing. The latter...

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Gadhafi, the Feminist?

1 Comments | Posted June 17, 2009 | 12:39 PM (EST)


NEW YORK - If Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadhafi was visiting your country and asked to meet 700 women, apparently as part of his mission to "save European women," what would you do?

Instead of telling him to save women at home first, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- Gadhafi's...

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Headscarves and Hymens

14 Comments | Posted June 16, 2009 | 12:16 PM (EST)


NEW YORK -- When President Barack Obama said he wanted to address women's rights during his speech to Muslims last week, I said a prayer to the God of the Torah, the Bible and the Quran: please don't let him fall into the trap of headscarves and hymens.

The...

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