MICHIGAN TAKES FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATORS TO COURT
FGM defender decries an “outright attack on this particular set of Muslims.”
On July 19, U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman denied bail for Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, a physician, as the Detroit Free Press reported, “accused of cutting the genitals of two Minnesota girls as part of a religious procedure.” According to the court, Nagarwala may have subjected as many as 100 girls to the procedure over the last 12 years.
Prosecutors also accuse co-defendant Dr. Fakhruddin Attar of letting Nagarwala use his clinic for the genital mutilation, with his wife Farida Attar “holding the girls’ hands during the procedures.”
Nagarwala and Attar are members of the Dawoodi Bohra community, an Islamic sect whose members practice FGM on young girls, prosecutors contend, “as part of their religious and cultural practice.” In June, Detroit-area woman Tahera Shafiq was charged with aiding in the mutilations, and identified by one of the victims.
“There was no mutilation of any genitals, of any kind,” Shafiq’s attorney, Victoria Burton-Harris, told CNN. “This is, quite honestly, ignorance of religion that has caused fear and an outright attack on this particular sect of Muslims.”
