The Familiar Stranger: Reclaiming My Voice by Naming Omar Jamal

Graphic version of Omar Jamal’s detention photo, which circulated widely on Somali community social media following his arrest

By Yasmine Farah

This is the first time I am speaking not only as a journalist, not only as a survivor, but as a woman reclaiming her sovereignty. In my Quantum Coaching work, I teach that silence carries energy. To stay silent is to carry the weight of what was done to you. To speak is to transmute that weight into power, clarity, and alignment.

In the summer of 2024, while on vacation from Ohio, I traveled to Minneapolis seeking rest and connection with family. Instead of peace, I found myself fighting off a man I thought I could trust. His name is Omar Jamal.

Now, in August 2025, Omar Jamal has been detained by ICE not for what he did to me, but because he is in the United States illegally. His detention is about immigration status, not accountability for violence.

What disturbs me most is watching the response. In my community, he is being hailed as a hero and a community leader. Media coverage has described him as a “longtime leader in the Somali community.” Source: Star Tribune. People defend him, speak of him with respect, and express outrage over ICE’s action while not knowing the harm he nearly inflicted on me.

On August 29, 2025, Omar Jamal was detained by ICE in Minneapolis. The following day, on August 30 at 5:08 PM, the Star Tribune published a photo of his arrest under the headline describing him as a “longtime leader in the Somali community

A History of Encounters

I first met Omar Jamal years ago as an intern at the Somali Embassy at the United Nations in New York, where he served as the Second Secretary.

Later in life, our roles even mirrored one another. Omar Jamal served as the Somali Liaison with Ramsey County in Minnesota, while I worked as the Somali Liaison with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio. We literally held the same position in different states. We were supposed to be the bridges between our communities and law enforcement. And yet, the man trusted as a liaison in Minnesota is the same man who tried to assault me.

The second time I saw him was the summer of 2024, in the lobby of the Ambassy Hotel in Minneapolis, crowded with Somali leaders welcoming a presidential hopeful and his guards. He didn’t remember me, but I remembered him.

That is often how it works: men who harm women are rarely total strangers. They are familiar strangers, men we have seen before, men who carry enough recognition to lower our guard.

The Assault

When he invited me for coffee in his nearby apartment, I agreed. I was not afraid. Why should I be? He was someone from my professional world. He looked like the harmless uncle in a frail body.

Once inside, everything shifted. Omar grabbed me, tried to force a kiss, and ripped my favorite dress as I fought back. I knew by his shear force this was not his first time.

What he didn’t know was that I was wearing a faja with a hidden zipper, an unexpected shield that kept him from taking more. That moment, the tearing of fabric, the pressure of his body pressing against my refusal, and the realization of how narrowly I escaped is seared into me. It was an attempted assault.

In that moment, my body chose laughter as survival. It was not joy, but a sharp break in the tension, a way of protecting myself from the heaviness of what was happening. I told him, “Let me go freshen up,” and locked myself in the bathroom. Staring into the mirror at my solid black undergarment, I laughed again, a sound I used to silence the rising scream. I whispered to my reflection, “It’s just a dress,” as if minimizing the torn fabric could shrink the violation. When I stepped out, he was waiting in his white boxers, a body poised for what I had never consented to give. Sex has always been sacred to me, a spiritual act, and at that time I had been celibate for five years. Holding the bottom of my torn dress, I snatched my purse from where it had fallen in the struggle, walked out the door, down the elevator, and into my car. For the next 24 hours I moved like a ghost laughing, pretending, minimizing, on autopilot in a twilight zone that wasn’t living, only surviving.

At the Ambassy Hotel in Minneapolis, summer 2024. This is the same dress I was wearing the day Omar Jamal later attempted to assault me. The individual beside me was not involved and has been covered to protect his identity.

A Year of Silence

That assault happened in the summer of 2024. For more than a year, I carried the truth of what happened to me while Omar Jamal continued living freely in our community, shielded by silence. I pretended nothing happened even responded to his texts like old times.

Now, in August 2025, ICE has detained him. But they did not detain him for what he did to me. They detained him because he is in the United States illegally.

And yet, as I scroll through social media and listen to community voices, I hear people hailing Omar Jamal as a leader, a hero, a man worth defending. They speak of injustice in his detention while ignoring the injustice of his violence.

That is disturbing. Because the truth is: the man being hailed as a community hero once tried to assault me. He is a danger to any woman alone with him.

A Shift in Energy

My story is not unique. Too many girls and women and perhaps boys and men more broadly know this weight of silence. We know the shame forced upon us. We know the way reputations are protected, the way men are excused, the way women are told to “keep it quiet for the sake of the community.”

But silence is not protection. Silence is complicity.

When we choose to hail men like Omar Jamal as heroes, while silencing women like me, we are not preserving community, we are destroying it. A true community cannot thrive if half of its members are forced into silence, stripped of safety, and told their experiences do not matter.

Reclaiming My Voice by Naming His

I am naming Omar Jamal because enough is enough. I refuse to protect the man who attempted to assault me with my silence. I refuse to protect the false image of safety that allows men like him to keep harming women behind closed doors.

Naming him is not about revenge. It is about truth. It is about reclaiming my power. It is about protecting the women who will come after me, so they know they are not alone and so they see that breaking silence is possible.

An Invitation to Accountability

To the Somali community, I say this: do not confuse defending predators with protecting our people. Protecting women is protecting the community. Believing women is protecting the community. Standing against men like Omar Jamal is the only way we build a community rooted in dignity and justice.

It is not dishonor to hold men accountable. The true dishonor lies in allowing women to be harmed while maintaining the illusion of respectability.

Beyond Silence, Toward Sovereignty

To all women, I say: you are not alone. You do not have to carry silence as your burden. Your truth matters more than the comfort of those who want you quiet.

And to every survivor: your story is yours to tell, and no one has the power to take that from you.

I will not be silent. His name is Omar Jamal, and he tried to assault me. My name is Yasmine Farah, and I am here to speak the truth.

I will not be silent. I am sovereign, I am unmuted, and I rise. Ase.

Yasmine Farah is an educationally trained journalist, Quantum Coach, Alum UMASS Amherst, a community health leader and writer based in Columbus, Ohio. She is the founder of We Matter Inc., a nonprofit serving immigrant and underserved communities. She writes at www.yasminefarah.com