Across the Middle East, there are many female TV hosts and anchors who run their shows adequately, providing their audiences with insightful and critical content. In a region where women are often marginalized, they continue proving that it doesn’t take a mustache (or a beard in this case) to tell the news.
Last week's showdown between Rima Karaki and Hanai Al Seba'i highlighted this idea splendidly.
On March 2, Lebanese TV host Karaki had Seba’i on her show on Al-Jadeed TV to discuss the growing numbers of Christians joining Islamist groups such as ISIS. Siba’i is an Egyptian Islamist Sunni scholar and lawyer who now resides in London as a political refugee after being sentenced to 15 years in prison for being part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
As the guest drifted to a rather historic background on the phenomenon, Karaki tried to redirect the conversation to the recent happenings, which infuriated Siba’i.
“Don’t cut me off. I will answer as I please,” Siba’i responded to Karaki.
Despite Karaki reassuring Siba’i that her request was to keep the conversation relevant and to the point, his rage kept rising until he cut her off, exclaiming “Shut up, so I can talk.”
Having commented that no respectable sheikh would ever tell a woman to shut up, Karaki requested that Siba’i’s video transmission be cut off seeing that there was no mutual respect.
Watch the full video here:
In a region where women's rights sometimes lag, it is always nice to see a woman command the respect she deserves.