The Heroines of the Arab World

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Life

10.ASMA AL-GHOUL

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Asma al-Ghoul is not your typical Palestinian activist. A secular feminist who writes for the Ramallah-based newspaper Al-Ayyam and blogs at AsmaGaza, Ghoul is known for her vocal denunciations of violations of civil rights in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, catching the media’s attention when she walked on a public Gaza beach with a mixed-gender group in 2009.

When she publicly denounced her uncle — a senior Hamas military leader — in an article, he threatened to kill her. After she was beaten by Hamas security forces in March 2011 while trying to cover rallies calling for Hamas to reconcile with Fatah, an international outcry prompted the Hamas government to apologize and promise an investigation.