TW: - Mentions of explicit sexual, emotional, and physical abuse.
By now, comrades must be wondering: Why has leadership not said anything — especially since I as an organizer organized with so many of them over the past few years?
I shall explain why.
Leadership does not believe the allegations and views them as infighting, gossip, and slander — thereby completely dismissing the disparate situation of sexual abuse. Leadership views it as a personal attack and not a principled critique demanding the removal of abusers from spaces where they can exploit and hurt vulnerable people. Leadership does not care about abusers being in leadership and does not care about supporting survivors. This is a result of their liberal organizing tendencies which I outline in part two, on criticism.
Observe how on social media and in personal circles leadership from A4PC, NSJP, SJP, and PYM are engaged in gossip and slander of my character. My critique is backed by evidence, investigation, and experience as an organizer in three different cities: Dallas, El Paso, and Austin. To dismiss my organizing experience is amusing and laughable — especially as all these organizations praised me, lauded me for my ideas and intelligence, and asked for me to continue working with them. It is only when I provide criticism and call them out for abuse instead of acting like their slave this reaction is elicited.
There is a necessity to criticism in a movement and leadership will attempt to discredit them — despite me spending the entirety of the past year engaged in conversations with them on various issues in the organizing space and how to rectify them. It has come to this point — after a year of discussing these various issues, after how Austin organizing and Palestine organizing as a whole has refused to change their tactics and mobilize more effectively resulting in my exile, I have been forced to issue this public critique and also to take immediate action to protect my community who I love from abusive organizers.
The movement cannot be militant unless you are first militant against abusers. If you cannot protect your own from abuse — then how strong is your movement exactly? What worth is it organizing with such a movement that cannot do anything about the most intimate form of oppression — abuse? What worth is your movement if organizations such as PSC refuse to publicly handle issues of sexual abuse — notably ignoring the allegations against Ryan listed and continuing as if nothing has changed?
This is the movement they are so desperate to protect: a rotting carcass crawling with abusers who they deem more important to protect than a Kashmiri Muslim comrade who was forced into exile and is watching as her people are being genocided. This is what organizing for Palestine’s leadership consists of: abusers, rapists, and their supporters — who are so livid over my criticisms they view their own pride more important than my very life.
I shall provide an example — a test, if you will, of how organizing leadership from PYM, NSJP, and SJP will further demonstrate their ineffectively and refusal to engage in internal & external accountability processes and prosecute abusers from their spaces.
Watch — if NSJP, SJP, and PYM does nothing effective about the man who abused me, you will have proof that they have abandoned me and have succumbed to liberalism and support of abusers and rapists. Thier silence and neglect of the allegations of abuse i’ve brought up is already speaking volumes.
I was sexually, physically and emotionally abused by Ayed Amer Abusaad, currently a member of PYM Dallas. Ayed and I began dating in September 2023, despite my reluctance which he used manipulative tactics of love-bombing and our age dynamic of three years to keep me. It is further complicated by the fact Ayed was aware of my previous history of abuse as a teenager by older men. This would play out in our relationship in various ways.
The reality of our relationship was him using me as a sexual object and for his emotional support — while in return, he patronized me, dismissed my feelings, and hated me out of his own insecurities. When I would ask for emotional support or comfort — a notable pattern arose, Ayed would expect and demand constant attention and validation from even if I was extremely exhausted, busy, and tired but would withhold emotional support and reassurance from me. When I was distraught at someone dismissing my struggles as a Kashmiri Muslim and invalidating my sexual trauma, Ayed dismissed it and said I just needed to “not care” but I was expected to provide the role of emotional support whenever he wanted it.
Whenever I would bring criticisms of his behavior (Most notably, an incident where he was physically violent to me), he would not let me speak, begin to get sad, upset and say how guilty he was, how he hated himself, and made it into a situation where now I had to comfort him and reassure him he wasn’t a bad person — instead of him allowing me to speak and then taking accountability.
When it came to his work as an organizer - he was incompetent and would weaponize helplessness to make me take on labor . At the time, i was an SJP officer in SJP UTD during the beginning of the October 7th era, assisting in organizing and mediating conflict in El Paso, and taking 6 classes as a university student, which I communicated to him. Yet despite that, he would frequently beg and pressure me into helping with restructuring his organization and working on presentations/flyers — but would get angry if I voiced criticisms of how I felt his organization was politically not accomplishing much — requesting me not to provide criticism because it “hurt his feelings”. I was used for my labor but my opinions were not deemed important enough — a common pattern one sees amongst organizing for Palestine.
I will begin to explain the manner in which Ayed was physically violent towards me. On one occasion, I requested Ayed to refrain from interacting with a Zionist counterprotestor out of concern for his safety. Ayed did not listen to me and I tugged on his sleeve to get his attention — in response, Ayed pushed me with one hand without even looking at me, the impact so great I stumbled.
The second happened not once, but numerous times throughout the course of our relationship which lasted from Sept 2023 to April 2024. When Ayed and I would sit together he would place his hand around my neck, which would fit around almost the entirety of my neck, sometimes squeezing lightly. Despite requesting him to stop as it terrified me, Ayed would insist that it was affectionate and that it was comforting for him, but was there truly affection in having a man’s hand wrapped around my neck, applying slight pressure? Was there affection in the fact if Ayed had squeezed any tighter, I could’ve choked to death?
The next part is sexual violence. The sexual violence was part of what caused an intense level of depression and suicidal ideation. Despite having religious beliefs on how premarital sex was forbidden, Ayed pressured and coerced me into it, then would be frequently angry, defensive, and resentful that I did not enjoy it. I did not enjoy it because I was struggling with sexual trauma of how Ayed resembled former abusers, intense religious guilt because I felt I had betrayed my faith (I now recognize that Allah will not hate me for being a victim of abuse and rape) and so I would disassociate so I could get the act over as soon as possible. Ayed was aware that I would cry frequently over the sexual acts he subjected me to, that as a result I felt like I wasn’t human and at times wanted to die, that my relationship with my faith suffered, that I could not face my Muslim friends or family without feeling disgusting — and he continued to act as if what he did to me was perfectly normal and would in fact attempt to convince me to continue doing it despite my intense mental breakdown. What was there to say about the fact Ayed would hit me during sexual acts — that he was always so willing or unconsciously using violence against me, that I would be visibly in pain during sexual acts, I would have tears in my eyes, and he would continue despite seeing me in excruciating pain and that I was in a situation again where I believed all my worth as a human being dissipated because all I was worth was being raped and beaten?
The one and only time I attempted to set a hard boundary I communicated with Ayed that I wished to wear hijab, that I no longer wanted to engage in sexual intimacy, and I wanted to limit our physical relationship because I wanted to return to my faith. In response, Ayed was angry and upset, complaining that he would suffer if he was not able to touch me. Of course, I could not say anything because I was being abused by him, and so I merely remained obedient.
Despite enduring such things at his hands — Ayed remained convinced throughout the relationship that I was the “angry” one. I of course will not claim that I was a perfect victim — but no one is because this is the nature of abuse. I was angry, I was resentful, and I was upset because I felt like he was killing me slowly and there was nothing I could do about it, that my self esteem was nonexistent and I would self-isolate from people and friends and rot in bed all day, that seeing him always put me into a mood of dull despair and dissatisfaction, that this was the rest of my life would be — misery, disappointment, and dissatisfaction. Ayed would also frequently label me as overly sexual because I would initiate sexual acts of intimacy — but this was out of panic that if I did not please him, he would abandon me and I would be seen as a degraded woman. My logic was that if Ayed stayed with me and we married, I could “repent” for my sin of committing sex before marriage. I now recognize that I was raped and I did not consent and was pressured in much of the relationship. I anticipate upon release of the statement — he will get angry, deny it completely, and claim instead he was the victim, utilizing a common tactic of abuse called DARVO.
My comrades, observe after I outline such serious allegations of abuse how organizing leadership will respond.
Observe, analyze, and assess — and from there, build your own movement. I predict that leadership will once again not be able to sufficiently respond to these allegations: perhaps either ignore them, pretend to deal with it in a paltry way, or deny it.
Build a movement that truly protects those like me, those who did not have any infrastructure to rely on — both as a non-citizen navigating state repression and as a marginalized woman navigating sexual abuse from the state and my own comrade.
I hope that me naming the man who abused me, that me naming the various abusers in Austin and Dallas can give survivors the courage to come forward and to speak their truth, to boldly and courageously confront those who hurt them, that an environment can be made where people feel safe, where abusers aren’t allowed to live safely, that those who rape and abuse live in fear, knowing that there is a community that protects the vulnerable. I hope to those whoever have been abused or raped that there is joy and relief one day, that there is a calm and happiness that comes one day, that what we went through does not define us and in fact we persevered, grew, changed, and survived — that the movement as it exists is not the movement that will truly liberate us, that from rot and decay springs life and longevity — that a new, radical movement is being born that will fight for those like us. That day will come.
Part 5 coming soon.