Top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin worked for a radical Muslim journal for 12 years that criticized women’s rights and blamed the U.S. for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to the New York Post.
Abedin was an assistant editor for the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, working for her mother, who was editor-in-chief at the time and still holds that position today. Several other close family members have held positions at the publication.
Abedin’s tenure at the journal began in 1996 and ended shortly before she began her employment as Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department.
The articles in the journal maintained controversial views such as blaming America for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, saying that women should be subservient to men, and rationalizing domestic abuse.
Huma continued to work for her mother’s journal through 2008. She is listed as "assistant editor" on the masthead of the 2002 issue in which her mother suggested the U.S. was doomed to be attacked on 9/11 because of "sanctions" it leveled against Iraq and other "injustices" allegedly heaped on the Muslim world.
The New York Post detailed various pieces in the publication that opposed women’s rights, including one written by Abedin’s mother that described how women should be subservient to men.
In a separate January 1996 article, Abedin’s mother–who was the Muslim World League’s delegate to the UN conference–wrote that Clinton and other speakers were advancing a "very aggressive and radically feminist" agenda that was un-Islamic and wrong because it focused on empowering women.
"‘Empowerment’ of women does more harm than benefit the cause of women or their relations with men," Saleha Mahmood Abedin maintained, while forcefully arguing in favor of Islamic laws that have been roundly criticized for oppressing women.
"By placing women in the ‘care and protection’ of men and by making women responsible for those under her charge," she argued, "Islamic values generate a sense of compassion in human and family relations."
Abedin’s mother also appeared to excuse domestic violence in the pages of the journal.
She seemed to rationalize domestic abuse as a result of "the stress and frustrations that men encounter in their daily lives." While denouncing such violence, she didn’t think it did much good to punish men for it.
She added in her 31-page treatise: "More men are victims of domestic violence than women ... If we see the world through ‘men’s eyes’ we will find them suffering from many hardships and injustices."
Abedin and the Clinton campaign have responded to the New York Post report by saying that Abedin did not have an active role in the publication.
"My understanding is that her name was simply listed on the masthead in that period," Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said hours after the Post published the story. "She did not play a role in editing at the publication."
Merrill would not say if Abedin was paid during her tenure at the journal.
Clinton has made women’s rights and gender equality, especially in the workplace, a focal point of her presidential campaign.