- Zainab Merchant is a Muslim-American Harvard graduate student from Florida who also runs a political commentary website, Z. R. Studios.
- According to ACLU, she has been singled out for excessive, humiliating searches and treatment by TSA and U.S. border officers every time she encounters them.
- Zainab Merchant will be coming to Mississauga in March for the launch of her new book “To Be a Muslim”.
The book of the American Muslim writer Zainab Merchant also presents a reminisce about the many contributions Muslims have given to civilization from science, to innovation and educational advances.
Merchant is a Harvard graduate student of Journalism and International Security. She runs a political commentary website, Z.R. Studios.
The native of Florida is an award-winning author, journalist, entrepreneur, and CEO of animated media startup Chipakly that seeks to promote global justice and peace through digital animation.
Moreover, she’s the author of Princess Siyana’s Pen, which has also been translated into French. She currently works on two publications: ‘Super Power Prayer’ and ‘Binocular Man’, beside novels on her horizon as well.
In her coming book, Merchant presents her own scope about dealing with Islamophobia in North America through her personal experience when she has been singled out for excessive searches and inhumane treatments by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and US border officers.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), these humiliating incidents occur frequently when Merchant travels back to the US after visiting her family in Canada.
In August 2018, the ACLU filed a formal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security demanding answers and a solution to Merchant’s problem.
The discriminatory incidents faced by Merchant is probably related to an infamous travel ban imposed by the American president Donald Trump which bans travelers from seven Muslim countries in addition to two non-Muslim nations from entering the US.
American Muslims see rising Islamophobia as a major obstacle to their daily life.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a leading Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, said that anti-Muslim discrimination incidents and hate crimes increased in the third quarter of 2018 by 83 and 21 percent respectively, compared with the first quarter.
During 2018, CAIR documented more than 1,000 reports of potential bias incidents. The numbers include situations involving various government agencies.