A Muslim woman is accusing the popular TGI Friday’s casual dining chain of tricking her into eating a food that her religion forbids: pork.
The chain, which has nearly 1,000 locations worldwide and which recently undertook a brand face-lift with a menu upgrade and restaurant renovation, says in a Facebook post that it is investigating her claim, noting, “we don’t tolerate discrimination in any form.”
The science teacher of a teenager accused of planning a repeat of the Columbine massacre told a court the boy asked him which gun he would prefer to be shot with. The 17-year-old, who can not be named for legal reasons, also asked for advice from the chemistry teacher about making explosives and told him he wanted to “blow up a mosque,” the Old Bailey heard.
The teacher, who can not be named, told the jury his former pupil looked at firearms on the internet while at school and referred to weapons used in the Columbine high school shootings in Colorado, in which 13 innocent people were killed. “He was encouraging me to look at the guns and make some sort of judgment about whether it was a good gun,” the teacher said. “He asked me which gun I would prefer to be shot with. The message – which I took as an empty threat at the time – was he was considering a shooting.”
The teacher told the court that the student would launch “tirades” against particular religions, aiming his abuse mainly at the Muslim and Jewish faiths, as well as targeting a pupil with German grandparents. “There were many instances of defiance and instances of racial abuse,” he said. “Instances of racism, tirades – long, drawn out – which were frankly painful to listen to. He seemed to believe that people of the Muslim religion did not have a place in this country.”
For a project that has been framed by its authors as an important step toward equality of the sexes, the Charter of Quebec Values is managing to upset a lot of women.
On Wednesday, it was the turn of the organization representing provincial women’s centres to issue a stark warning about the damage the charter proposals are causing before they even become law. The group, R des centres des femmes du Québec, said that the debate over the charter, which would ban such religious symbols as the Muslim hijab and Jewish kippa from the public service, is provoking violence against Muslim women.
At a meeting last week, the organization representing 97 centres across the province heard of dozens of recent incidents in which Muslim women wearing headscarves were targeted. “Women are being shoved, insults, denigrated,” the group said in a statement. “Some have even been spit on in the face. The impacts of the debate over the charter are undeniable.”
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.