Homa Comes Home

We at Culture & Capitalism are thrilled to report that our colleague and friend, Professor Homa Hoodfar, is safely back home in Canada having been freed from her imprisonment in Iran ‘on humanitarian grounds.’

As we discussed in a July blog post about her ordeal, Professor Hoodfar is an Iranian-Canadian professor of Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal, who travelled to Iran in February to visit family and conduct archival research. She was arrested on June 6th and charged with ‘cooperating with a foreign state.’

According to the Wall Street Journal, Homa was said to be accused of  ‘dabbling in feminism and security matters,’ and held in Evin Prison where her health rapidly declined. Because Canada does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, its government worked with Oman, Italy, and Switzerland to secure her release.

When France’s controversial burkini ban grabbed headlines this summer, many of us felt the poignant absence of Homa’s voice in the debate, starting with her celebrated article, ‘The Veil in Their Minds and on Our Heads: The Persistence of Colonial Images of Muslim Women.’

We all send Homa Hoodfar best wishes for recovery with her family and friends in Montreal.