In the News: Victory of Djemila Benhabib over Amal Amin

Fundamentalist Muslims who sued author and secular activist Djemila Benhabib for having published, on her blog in the newspaper Journal de Montréal, photos of children in a Quran recitation competition, have had their complaint dismissed by small-claims court. Ms Amal Amin, represented before the court by her husband Mohammed Rakha, alleged that her privacy rights and those of her children had been violated by the blog because of the publication of photos in which her two children appeared. In the blog, entitled « Les petites filles voilées : notre grande hypocrisie » (“Veiled Little Girls: Our Great Hypocrisy”), Ms Benhabib denounces the fact that young girls are forced to wear the veil and she considers that to be a flagrant and cruel inequality imposed on them because of their gender.

The court ruled that the photos in question were in the public domain because they had already been published on the web site of the al-Rawdah mosque, and with the parents’ consent as well. The court rejected the complainant’s claim for damages ($7000) and court fees.

Here is the decision of the small-claims court (in French)

(This case is unrelated to the suit brought by Muslim Schools of Montreal against Ms Benhabib because of remarks she made during a radio interview with Benoît Dutrizac.)