Mise à jour du 25 janvier 2018 : Droits cédés aux éditions Globe

The courageous report of the rebellion of a young woman against a religious system

FRAUEN DÜRFEN HIER NICHT TRÄUMEN
(Women Aren’t Allowed to Dream Here)
by Rana Ahmad
btb, January 2018

Shimmering heat, skyscrapers glittering in the sun: Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world – and it is ruled by sharia and religious police. Rana is ten years old when she first has to don a niqab. She is no longer allowed to feel the sun on her skin, no longer allowed to go out onto the street without a male escort. She is sexually abused by her uncles, almost beaten to death by her brother in front of their mother. As a woman, in the home of her birth she is mere property, without the right of self-determination. Rana feels she is suffocating, is plagued by doubts – about God. And the punishment for this in Saudi Arabia is death. That is one reason she decides to flee.

Rana Ahmad, born in 1985, fled from Saudi Arabia in 2015 and came via Turkey, Greece and the Balkan route to Germany, where she now lives. She was given support for her dangerous escape by the Richard Dawkins Foundation and she belongs to the Arab Atheist Community. To prevent her brother and her family from finding her she had to change her name.