Thanks - interesting story.
I support all women everywhere who are rebelling against male authority and misogynist traditions. And it takes so much courage to do this when you've internalised that obedience to them is part of what a 'good woman' should be. As she notes, the example of other women doing it is often the thing needed to give us the self-belief necessary to do this. This applies to secularist Western cultures as much as religious ones, IMO.
WRT to the problem of people being reluctant to criticise Islam for fear of fuelling anti-Muslim prejudice, I think all women have the right and the duty to criticise human rights abuses against women and girls like forced marriage and FGM, wherever they appear.
Issues like the veil are trickier - I think it is better for non-Muslim women to leave this issue to Muslim women to hash out. When we criticise it, it looks like (and is) hypocrisy because Western cultural norms dictate all kinds of misogynist gendered clothing for women (high heels, anyone?).
And veiled Muslim women have been used as a symbol by right-wing politicians to cast the Muslim world as inherently backward (and thus ripe for invasion). Muslim women's appearance is often picked over in the media in a way that is really dehumanising. It's not helpful for Western feminists to add to this. It makes solidarity between Muslim and non-Muslim women impossible, for a start.