Islam in Europe reports on two cases from France.
Category Archives: Hijab
Al Jazeera TV focus on Irish family who want hijab in schools
Arabic news network Al Jazeera has taken an active interest in the plight of an Irish girl who wants to wear a religious headscarf to school.
The Egan family from Wexford, who were caught up in the row over the wearing of the hijab in Irish schools have been featured on the Al Jazeera English channel. Liam and his wife Beverley requested that their 14-year-old daughter, Shekinah Egan, be allowed to wear the religious headdress to Gorey Community School last September, sparking debate on the issue.
The Government refused to take a stand on the issue, leaving it as a matter for individual schools. Mr Egan has accused the Government of repressing minority rights while “flaunting itself as the bastion of democracy”.
The father of the young schoolgirl spoke to the news network and said that, “It is time the world witnessed the true face of Ireland. “The issue of the hijab [Islamic headscarf] is a reflection of how Ireland treats its minorities,” he said. “It has silently repressed Muslim rights while flaunting itself as the bastion of democracy for far too long.”
Shekinah Egan was allowed to continue wearing the headscarf. However her father claims that several schools moved towards banning the wearing of the hijab, with one school in Dublin stating it violates the country’s “Catholic ethos”.
Ruairi Quinn, Labour Party spokesman, recently spoke about how immigrants who come to Ireland “need to conform”. However, the Egans in Wexford are an Irish family who have converted to Islam. Liam Egan converted to Islam at the age of 28 and his wife Beverley MacKenzie is British born.
“This is not an immigrant issue,” Liam Egan proclaimed. “It’s about freedom to practise religious beliefs. We should not follow the lead of France, where there is no tolerance. People say we should assimilate, but I was born in Wexford – I am Irish and Muslim.”
Belgium: How Islam corrupts the schools
Belgian French-language magazine Le Vif/L’Express has come out with a five page spread in its August 29th issue about Islam in the Belgian school system.
The headline on the cover – “How Islam Threatens the School” – and the article’s title – “How Islam Corrupts the School” – have already drawn criticisms.
Sadly, the article itself is not available freely online, though I understand it doesn’t really bring any new data. Most schools in Brussels ban the veil, but there are other Muslim requirements from the school system – offering halal food or banning pork, enabling girls to drop gym and swimming classes and not to attend school outings, enabling students to fast at Ramadan, and giving students a place to pray at school.
The article claims that teachers and principles feel they can’t handle the situation. Not only in the case of science and creationism, teachers feel they’re being forced to adapt the curriculum in other subjects such as geography and history so as not to offend students.
Part of the criticism is that besides noting that 30% of schoolgirls in Brussels are Muslims, the article does not give factual data on how many such cases of demands there are from Muslim students and parents.
I received a response from Karim Chemlal, head of the League of Muslims in Belgium, who accuses the exposé of being shallow and not going into the real debate. He points to a study that says Islam is sometimes used as an excuse by students whose true motive is to provoke the system.
Let Muslim women speak
“The last few weeks have been particularly eventful for Muslim women on Comment is Free. We would have felt extremely exhausted by all the excitement, were it not for the fact that – with the notable exception of Samia Rahman and Reefat Drabu – we were spared the ignominy of having to participate in the debate ourselves.
“AC Grayling started us off by equating the headscarf with an iron shackle and stating that Muslim women are complicit in their own oppression. In the process of attacking the abhorrent denial of freedom that Muslim women can wrongly suffer, Grayling (in)advertently takes away the very same freedom of choice to decide to wear the hijab if we choose.
“Julie Burchill bigged up Christianity, and in the process scathingly dismissed Islam and Muslim women. The only “Muslim” women she suggested as role models – Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji – were those she claimed had rejected Islam and were no longer Muslim….
“Islamic theology has a strong framework for a blueprint of gender equality…. we may say, believe and do things which don’t fit in with the caricature of a Muslim woman who would be desperate to be ‘liberated’ from Islam if only she knew it.
“You may find our voices reverberating with the view that we like being Muslim women, we just want to make our lives better and in line with true Islamic principles. It would be nice if those who debate vociferously about Muslim women would therefore move over and give us the seat at the table that we’re demanding.”
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at Comment is Free, 2 September 2008
‘End the silence over Islam’
“Am I alone in my disquiet about our government’s courtship of the Scottish Islamic Foundation? In the 1970s, young women like me embraced multiculturalism; we were engaging with our oppressed sisters everywhere around the world. Or so it seemed at the time. Where are we now? And why are we so effectively silenced?
“Why do we have nothing to say about a sharia credit card? Have we really forgotten what sharia law means for women? While English clerics debate the pros and cons of introducing an element of sharia law into their legal system, where are our voices in this debate? Do we seriously think it won’t happen in Scotland? Look at their website. It’s happening already.
“What do we think about the headline ‘Muslim sprinter wins Olympic sprint dressed head to toe in hijab’ (from the Scottish Islamic Foundation website)? Or of Al Jazeera talking to Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy first minister, about a ‘Scottish division’ of their TV station. Why on earth would they want a Scottish division? I need to know.
“I am not opposed, in principle, to any of these, but I am opposed to the suffocating, politically correct silence that now surrounds any criticism of organisations such as the Scottish Islamic Foundation. We need to bring this debate into the open. I don’t fear the debate; I fear the silence.”
Letter in the Scotsman, 29 August 2008
Muslim woman wearing veil ousted from Italy museum
The head of one of Venice’s most prestigious museums on Wednesday apologized to an Islamic woman who was asked to leave by a guard because she was wearing a head veil.
The episode, which sparked controversy in the Italian media and rows between centre-left and centre-right politicians, occurred last Sunday in Venice’s Ca’ Rezzonico museum, which houses 18th century Venetian art.
“I’m sorry for what happened and if she ever wants to return to our museum, she will be more than welcome,” director Filippo Pedrocco told Reuters by telephone from Venice. “She will be most welcome among all women,” he said.
The woman, who was visiting the famed museum with her husband and children, had already cleared security when she entered the building and had begun her visit. When she reached the second floor, a room guard told her she had to take off her “niqab”, a veil which leaves only the eyes visible, or leave.
“The room guard was over-zealous. He should not have done it. She already passed security and his only duty was to guarantee the safety of the artwork in his room,” Pedrocco said.
The woman was believed to have been part of a well-off family visiting Venice, one of Italy’s most expensive cities, from Saudi Arabia or a Gulf state.
She refused to take off her veil and left the building, which faces Venice’s Grand Canal and houses works by such 18th century Venetian masters as Giandomenico Tiepolo.
Turning the tables
“My sister has worn a face veil for six years. She lives in Birmingham, where it is common to see women shrouded in black, however the sight is more unusual in Southampton, where my parents live and where, at the weekend, my sister was called ‘a ninja woman’.
“This insult is neither the most hurtful – ‘fucking terrorist freak’ – nor the most spurious – ‘Osama-lover’ – to have been levelled at her over the years. But it wasn’t the name-calling that really rankled her and me.
“We challenged the man who made the remark, he denied saying it, even though he said it as I was passing him. My sister called him ‘a lying bigot’, which is all she could muster on a Sunday afternoon in Primark, en route to Clark’s to have her children fitted for new shoes, but she delivered it rather splendidly, to the bemusement of shoppers who, if they hadn’t noticed her before, suddenly found her rather interesting. Her children asked why mummy was shouting at a man.”
Riazat Butt in the Guardian, 27 August 2008
Muslim sprinter wins Olympic sprint dressed head to toe in hijab
Sprinters have long been squeezing their muscular frames into the most eye-wateringly skimpy, tight and revealing costumes imaginable.But one female athlete at this year’s Olympics is bucking the trend for bulging lycra and naked torsos.
In 2004, Bahrain’s Ruqaya Al Ghasara, a devout Muslim, was the first athlete to ever take part in an Olympics wearing a hijab. Today, Al Ghasara won her heat of the women’s 200m sprint at the Bird’s Nest stadium – despite being clothed head to foot.
Swiss Christian Democrat leader calls for veil ban
The president of the centre-right Christian Democratic Party Christophe Darbellay proposed a nationwide veil ban in a recent interview with the broadsheet Tages-Anzeiger. It would also apply to holidaymakers from Arab countries in resorts like Interlaken, where the visitor segment from Middle Eastern countries has seen rapid growth, and female tourists wearing the niqab and burqa are becoming a common sight. Tourism industry representatives have reacted with scepticism to the CDP’s proposal.
Hijab-wearing woman kidnapped Madeleine McCann, says Sun
A little girl who cops suspect could be Madeleine McCann asked a woman she was seen walking with, “Can we go back now?” it emerged last night.
The poignant plea in English was overheard by a bank security guard in Brussels, Belgium – and he is convinced the kiddie was missing Maddie.
The guard told detectives the blonde blue-eyed girl looked just like Maddie, who was nearly four when she vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal on May 3 last year.
She was with a woman the man did not believe was her mother because they were very unalike. The dark-skinned woman, wearing a hijab headdress, spoke in a different language, possibly broken French.