A federal judge ruled against enforcing a zoning change brought upon by a central New Jersey township this week, which restricted a mosque from extending its boundaries into a residential territory.
Al Falah Center had fought for years to gain approval for a new mosque in the Jersey township of Bridgewater. On Monday, the township could not validate reasoning as to why the mosque could not be built, leading a judge to grant permission for the expansion of the mosque.
Two Tesco employees from Northampton were indirectly discriminated against because of restricted access to prayer facilities at their depot, a tribunal has ruled.
Abdirisak Aden and Mahamed Hasan, both aged 27, were among a number of devout Muslim employees who had lobbied since 2006 for a room to pray in at set times each day at Tesco’s Crick distribution depot in Northamptonshire.
They were granted the use of a security room in 2008, but in 2012 they were set restrictions including that they must tell managers when they were going to pray and must ask for a key for the room.
The Bedford Employment Tribunal found Tesco had committed indirect discrimination and awarded the men an undisclosed sum for injury to their feelings.
The judgement also found that Tesco unlawfully harassed the men through the introduction of prayer time guidelines and the fact Mr Aden and Mr Hasan were asked to sign them.
It also found that the fact Mr Hasan was told the guidelines would be implemented “whether he liked it or not” was also harrassment.
We have previously covered the controversy over plans for a new mosque in Worcester Park. These plans resulted in a mass petition against the development, interventions by the National Front and English Defence League, and the daubing of a swastika on the door of the building, before the application for planning permission was finally rejected by Sutton Council last month.
Yesterday the Surrey Comet reported that the Ismaili community are hoping to convert a derelict pub in the same area into a community centre (further details can be found at the Worcester Park Blog). Predictably, the proposal has unleashed the usual wave of anti-Muslim hatred and bigotry.
DAPHNE, Alabama — Daphne High School is offering Arabic language classes instead of French classes this fall, taught by Sanaa El-Khattabi, a former University of South Alabama professor.
The school had a staff position open after its French teacher retired, said Meredith Foster, Daphne High’s principal. “We had to make a decision to replace that foreign language unit,” she said.
School officials believe the class will help prepare students to succeed in a global economy. But some Daphne residents are upset that the Baldwin County school system is permitting its students to learn what they call “a culture of hate.”
“When you teach Arabic, you have to teach the culture along with it,” said Chuck Pyritz, whose two sons, Isaiah, 17, and Isaac, 14, attend Daphne High. “The culture is intertwined with Islam.”
A federal appeals court has dismissed claims by an Oklahoma woman who says she was not hired by retailer Abercrombie & Fitch because her headscarf conflicted with the company’s dress code, which has since been changed.
A federal judge in 2011 sided with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Samantha Elauf. The EEOC alleged that Elauf wasn’t hired in 2008 at an Abercrombie store in Tulsa’s Woodland Hills Mall because her hijab violated the retailer’s “Look Policy.”
Two Muslim teenagers at a Roman Catholic school have been banned from lessons for refusing to shave off their beards.
The 14-year-olds have been in “isolation” at Mount Carmel High School in Accrington for almost a month, the school confirmed. It means they have not been allowed to join normal classes since the start of term, despite claiming they could not remove their facial hair on religious grounds. And they will not be allowed to go back until the matter is resolved.
The school said the rule was part of the schools’ dress code but a relative of one of the boys said it was “pure discrimination”.
A preliminary contract has been signed for Islam to be recognized as an official religion in Lower Saxony after Bremen and Hamburg provinces in Germany.
Lower Saxony Prime Minister Stephen Weil convened the representatives of Islamic institutions at the provincial guest-house to initiate the talks to accept Islam as an official religion.
A group of Syrian refugees in Bulgaria have filed a complaint with the country’s Discrimination Protection Committee against Magdalena Tasheva, a lawmaker from the ultranationalist Ataka party, over a series of shockingly xenophobic remarks.
Tasheva, who hosts a show broadcast by Ataka’s own TV channel, Alpha TV, has repeatedly insulted the Syrian refugees on air, calling them “fiends”, “scum”, “mass killers”, “cannibals”, “savages”, “Islamic fundamentalists who have escaped justice” and “terrible, despicable primates”, among others. She has claimed that the refugees “have started stealing and beating people” and would “start raping and chopping heads off.”
English Defence League protesting in Bradford in August 2010
Two Bradford MPs today demanded the banning of a march by the far-right English Defence League in Bradford next weekend. The controversial rally planned for Saturday, October 12 has been allowed by police to proceed. But today MPs George Galloway and Gerry Sutcliffe asked West Yorkshire’s Police Commissioner and Chief Constable to reverse the decision.
Mr Galloway said: “The EDL are a scourge who seek to sow division and hatred wherever they go. Time and again, people from ethnic minorities, their places of worship, passers by and even the police have been subject to terrible abuse and even violence from the thugs who come on all their events.”
We have already run two pieces on National Secular Society council member and One Law For All spokesperson Anne Marie Waters and her involvement with the notorious “counterjihad” publication Dispatch International (see here and here).
However, it’s also worth noting that Waters’ new role as a contributor to DI has gone down very well elsewhere in the “counterjihad” network. Here is George Igler congratulating Ingrid Carlqvist on her recruitment of such a well-known figure from the secularist movement:
Carlqvist we have previously introduced – she is co-editor of DI and a firm proponent of the view that western civilisation is being dumbed down as a result of “huge immigration from low IQ countries”. But who is George Igler?