Yearly Archives: 2010

Wilders says headscarf ban will be price of coalition agreement

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Wilders not wantedA ban on headscarves for city council workers and in all institutions and clubs which get local authority money will be the most important point in the PVV’s negotiations to join governing coalitions in Almere and the Hague, says party leader Geert Wilders.

Speaking to RTL news, Wilders said the ban would be central to talks to form new local authority executives in the only two cities where the party is contesting the March 3 local elections. The ban will apply to “all council offices and all other institutions and clubs which get even one cent of council money,” he said.

The PVV is tipped to emerge as the biggest party in Almere and second biggest in the Hague.

Wilders brought up the ban again in a speech to supporters in Almere, where he entered the room to the Rocky theme tune Eye of the Tiger.

The ban will not apply to other religious items such as Christian crosses and Jewish skull caps because these are symbols of our own Dutch culture, Wilders said in his speech, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.

Dutch News, 26 February 2010

Christian right opposes Methodist campaign against Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, was a decrier of Islam. He described its followers as “wolves and tigers to all other nations”. Yet 250 years later, his 21st-century followers are pitting their time, energy and money into fighting Islamophobia.

A new project set up by the Methodist district of Sheffield in partnership with the Anglican Diocese of Sheffield aims to “challenge Islamophobia, racism and divisive politics” in the region. It has won a £75,000 grant from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to fight extremism, after recent electoral successes by the BNP and rallies by the English Defence League.

However, the initiative has caused unease in some conservative Christian circles, with some demanding that the two leading Christian denominations should instead be challenging what they describe as the “Christianophobia” of modern-day Britain.

One conservative blog, Cranmer’s Curate, asked: “Is not ‘Christianophobia’ as great – if not a greater – problem now in British society than ‘Islamophobia’, and of more immediate concern to Christian organisations such as the Sheffield Methodist District and the Diocese of Sheffield? What about the situation faced by Christians in the public sector suspended or fired from their employment simply for offering to pray with clients or for saying ‘God bless’?” It goes on to attack the churches for “preaching politically correct morality to the community rather than the gospel”.

Times, 27 February 2010

Defend Jamaat-e-Islami against ‘secularism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jamaat Gaza protest
Jamaat-e-Islami demonstration against Israel’s attack on Gaza

Under the heading “Bangladesh set to become again a secular state”, left-wing blogger Andrew Coates has enthusiastically hailed what he claims is a decision by the government of Bangladesh to restore the secular foundations of the country’s constitution.

He bases his post on reports that the Supreme Court in Dhaka has upheld a ruling that the government can reverse amendments made to the constitution in the period following the military coup of 1975. Coates approvingly quotes law minister Shafique Ahmed as saying: “In the light of the verdict, the secular constitution of 1972 already stands to have been revived. Now we don’t have any bar to return to the four state principles of democracy, nationalism, secularism and socialism as had been heralded in the 1972 statute of the state.”

There were indeed amendments made to the 1972 constitution after 1975 that undermined the secular basis of the state. The religious invocation “Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim” (“In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful”) was added to the preamble of the constitution, and Islam was declared to be the official state religion of Bangladesh. To overturn those amendments would of course be entirely legitimate from the standpoint of establishing a secular state, and if the government of Bangladesh were proposing to change the constitution accordingly there would be no objection.

However, the government has shown little enthusiasm for such a change. Following a meeting last month between the ruling Awami League and its coalition partners, one of whom urged that the constitution should be amended along those lines, prime minister Sheikh Hasina stated firmly that the words “Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim” would be left unchanged in the constitution, as would the declaration that Islam is the state religion.

It is not difficult to identify the motive behind this decision. During the 2008 election campaign the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami accused the Awami League of hostility towards Islam, and Sheikh Hasina no doubt reasons that if her government were to abolish the religious elements in the constitution this would be exploited by the opposition. So an entirely justifiable change that would restore the secular principle to the constitution has been rejected on pragmatic, not to say opportunistic, political grounds.

What, then, are the “secular foundations” of the 1972 constitution that the Bangladesh government wishes to restore? Well, crucially they want to reinstate a provision, subsequently removed, which declared that “no person shall have the right to form, or be a member or otherwise take part in the activities of, any communal or other association or union which in the name or on the basis of any religion has for its object, or pursues, a political purpose”.

Indeed, following the Supreme Court’s verdict, Shafique Ahmed was quoted as saying that all religion-based parties should “drop the name of Islam from their name and stop using religion during campaigning”, and he went on to announce that religion-based parties are going to be “banned”. In short, what the government of Bangladesh is planning to do is to amend the constitution in order to illegalise Jamaat-e-Islami.

What does this have to do with secularism? Nothing whatsoever. If a secular constitution required the suppression of faith-based political parties, then secularism in Germany would require a ban on the Christian Democrats. And nobody, not even a secularist ultra like Andrew Coates, is calling for that.

You can imagine how different the response would be if a government headed by Jamaat-e-Islami were to propose a ban on secular parties in Bangladesh, on the grounds that they conflicted with the Islamic basis of the constitution. Coates, along with the likes of Harry’s Place and the Spittoon, would be furiously denouncing “totalitarian Islamism” and its contempt for democratic principles. But a secular party proposes to ban an Islamist party and you don’t hear a peep from them.

Fitzpatrick joins Torygraph in witch-hunt of IFE

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jim FitzpatrickA Labour minister says his party has been infiltrated by a fundamentalist Muslim group that wants to create an “Islamic social and political order” in Britain.

The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) – which believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state – has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” of voters. Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties.

“They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it’s at local government level or national level,” he said. “They are completely at odds with Labour’s programme, with our support for secularism.”

Sunday Telegraph, 28 February 2010

See also “Inextricably linked to controversial mosque: the secret world of IFE“, by Andrew Gilligan, in the same issue. Gilligan reveals that IFE “is dedicated, in its own words, to changing the ‘very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam’.” That would be as distinct from, say, the Roman Catholic Church, which of course has no intention of transforming society in line with the principles of Christianity.

According to Gilligan, members of IFE are required to read “the key works of the revolutionary political creed known as Islamism, which advocates the overthrow of secular democratic government and its replacement by Islamic government”. Which those of us who reject Gilligan’s Islamophobic hysteria might think is hardly an imminent prospect in the UK, where 97% of the population is non-Muslim.

Not that this concerns the Telegraph. Under the headline “This secretive agenda must be taken seriously“, an editorial warns that “developments in Tower Hamlets are worrying news for British democracy”.

School bus drivers ‘refusing to stop for young Muslim girls who are wearing the hijab’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

School bus drivers have been accused of racism after failing to stop for pupils wearing Muslim hijabs.

Young girls have claimed they are being bullied on board for dressing in the traditional veil which covers the head. To avoid trouble, “cowardly” drivers are allegedly ignoring pupils who wait at bus stops wearing the headscarf.

Following a police investigation, officers will now be drafted on to board the buses to protect the students from “racist” taunts of other passengers.

The problems centre on Merseytravel and pupils attending West Derby’s Holly Lodge Girls’ College in Merseyside, where 10 per cent of the 11,274 11 to 18-year-old students are from ethnic minorities.

Members of the Muslim community said the issue was a long-running one. Amina Ismail, who works at Liverpool John Moores University, was approached by the victims. She said: “They said people driving past were being abusive because they were wearing the hijab.”

Ms Ismail said bus drivers refusing to stop were “cowardly” and that “they should not push their own personal prejudices on young people”. She urged people to “see past the scarf or skin colour and look beyond this”.

Muslim woman sacked by US store for wearing headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim woman has lodged a complaint with federal officials after she said she was fired from her job at a San Mateo clothing store for refusing to remove her hijab, or head scarf.

Hani Khan, 19, of Foster City said she was fired Monday at the Hollister clothing store at the Hillsdale Shopping Center. She was dismissed a week after a district manager visited the store, called her into a meeting and said she was not supposed to wear the scarf while at work, said Khan, who is of Indian and Pakistani descent.

A representative from human resources joined the meeting by phone, and Khan said she had been told that she was in violation of the store’s “look policy.”

“I thought it was quite unfair,” Khan said in an interview. “It was really surprising, especially in the Bay Area, because everybody’s so open-minded and accepting of everybody. It’s really surprising to see blatant discrimination against someone who is of an Islamic state who is wearing a hijab.”

Khan contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group. On Tuesday, the organization filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Abercrombie & Fitch, which operates Hollister stores.

Zahra Billoo, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Khan’s firing was “unconscionable.” “Firing someone explicitly for a religious reason or practice is, in our view, against the law,” Billoo said.

In September, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Abercrombie & Fitch for allegedly discriminating against a 17-year-old Muslim in Oklahoma by refusing to hire her because she wore a hijab. The case is pending.

San Francisco Chronicle, 26 February 2010

See also Tracy Clark-Flory, “Abercrombie hates your hijab”, Salon.com, 25 February 2010

And “Fired Calif. Muslim Abercrombie employee threatened”, CAIR news release, 25 February 2010

Tower Hamlets Council leader replies to ‘hijab gates’ nonsense

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lutfur Rahman, leader of Tower Hamlets Council, replies to the Guardian‘s full-page scaremongering article, “Brick Lane plan for hijab gates angers residents“, in which bigoted residents were given a platform to claim, entirely inaccurately, that the proposed new arches in Brick Lane are “undoubtedly faith-specific to Islam” and “both Islamic and representing a specifically conservative form of Islam”.

He writes: “We would never go into this kind of programme with the blinkered intention of favouring one section of the community – which, judging by some of the Islamophobic reaction on your website, is clearly the impression left in the minds of many people reading your original article.”

Guardian, 26 February 2010

Muslim woman sacked by US store for wearing headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim woman has lodged a complaint with federal officials after she said she was fired from her job at a San Mateo clothing store for refusing to remove her hijab, or head scarf.

Hani Khan, 19, of Foster City said she was fired Monday at the Hollister clothing store at the Hillsdale Shopping Center. She was dismissed a week after a district manager visited the store, called her into a meeting and said she was not supposed to wear the scarf while at work, said Khan, who is of Indian and Pakistani descent.

A representative from human resources joined the meeting by phone, and Khan said she had been told that she was in violation of the store’s “look policy.”

“I thought it was quite unfair,” Khan said in an interview. “It was really surprising, especially in the Bay Area, because everybody’s so open-minded and accepting of everybody. It’s really surprising to see blatant discrimination against someone who is of an Islamic state who is wearing a hijab.”

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City University closes Muslim prayer room

Posted on by Bob Pitt

City University protest

Hundreds of Muslim students and staff have turned Northampton Square into a makeshift mosque after university bosses padlocked their prayer room.

For the past week, Muslims at City University in Finsbury have endured the wind, rain and snow to pray three times a day on the pavement.

And at Friday lunchtime, up to 350 students and staff turned out for the weekly congregational prayer. Shafiq Mundiya, 26, a technical support officer, said: “We need a place to pray and we have been praying outside to tell people that we are upset and that we want our prayer room back. The prayer room was constantly being used by staff and students. The fact that the university closed it is quite devastating.”

For 10-plus years, the university’s Muslims have performed several of their five daily prayers in the basement of the Gloucester Building in Whiskin Street, Finsbury. Students say it was used by about 100 people a day, and up to 450 on Friday lunchtimes. But City University decided it was not safe to keep it open after four Muslim students were stabbed in St John Street by racist thugs in November. The 23-year-old undergraduate said: “We have had no problems with that gang since. They have even approached one of us, apologised and said it was a misunderstanding.”

Last Monday, the Gloucester Building prayer room was padlocked and Muslim students were directed to a new multi-faith room nearer the centre of the university. But campaigners say they cannot use a room that is also for the worship of other deities and that it only has space for 40 men and 40 women.

Islington Gazette, 24 February 2010