Member-only story
It was a hashtag meant to celebrate women’s choices but instead it became a vehicle for those who have been robbed of their choices to share their stories of oppression. An ironic turn of events given that #freeinhijab and World Hijab Day, the organization that started it, were created to push the idea hijab has nothing to do with oppression.
Beginning at the end of December 2018, the hashtag was initially filled with smiling women in hijab accompanied with positive anecdotes of how wonderful it has made their lives. Slowly but surely, things started to make a much darker turn.
It was not long until women in full-on niqabs starting appearing with stories of horror and despair. Telling of violence, imprisonment, and even death should they remove their head-to-toe garb. Realities the initial tweeters of the hashtag are either unaware of or perhaps want to pretend do not exist. Either way, this does not bode well for the campaign’s promoters.
Either there is some wider conspiracy orchestrated by “islamophobes” or the hijab remains a very real tool of oppression for many women. While the facts speak for themselves, it’s not hard to imagine many believing the former scenario. Given the rise of salafist ideology that has been spread via Saudi Arabia over the last half-century, an ideology pushing a worldview antithetical to both reality and…
