Yusuf Smith summarises Myriam Francois Cerrah’s interview with Virago Press founder Carmen Callil. He notes that it provides “a very useful insight into the colonial contempt some ‘feminists’ have towards Muslim women”.
Category Archives: Hijab
Appeasement of Muslims in Detroit
“In the Detroit-area, where a festering and metastasizing Muslim minority has managed to co-opt the media, every time a Muslim hiccups, it makes the news. And every time kids at a Muslim school celebrate a holiday, that makes the news, too. Christmas parties at a Catholic or Evangelical school, who cares? And a lot of these stories are – predictably – meant to impress upon us various areas of disinformation, such as how pro-female Islam is or how peaceful.”
Right-wing US pundit Debbie Schlussel takes issue with the Detroit Free Press over its favourable coverage of the hajj celebration at a local Muslim school, the Muslim American Youth Academy.
Aqsa – a dirge
“Here’s what we know of Aqsa Parvez’ death: Aqsa Parvez had problems at home stemming from intergenerational and, probably to some degree, cross-cultural conflicts, which made her distinct from other Canadian kids in exactly zero ways. She was killed in her home, something so mind-shatteringly evil there is nothing normal at all about it. Analyzing it as if it falls into some pattern or other is fruitless. Scrambling over Aqsa Parvez’ prone dead body, wrenching off this bit or that, to position it so that its ultimate sacrifice is a sacrifice for our just cause, the obliteration of the hijab or the destruction of the myth of traditional multiculturalism or the age-old war against tradition, is disgusting.”
Abdiel Abd Al Hayy takes on Irshad Manji et al.
‘The deadly face of Muslim extremism’
Two members of the so-called Muslim Canadian Congress add their voices to the anti-Muslim campaign provoked by the tragic death of Aqsa Parvez.
National Post, 12 December 2007
For a response, see muslimmatters.org
Quebec union leaders call for hijab ban
MONTREAL — No public servant – including Muslim teachers and judges – should be allowed to wear anything at work that shows what religion they belong to, leaders of Quebec’s two biggest trade union federations and a civil-servants’ union told the Bouchard-Taylor commission Monday.
“We think that teachers shouldn’t wear any religious symbols – same thing for a judge in court, or a minister in the National Assembly, or a policeman – certainly not,” said Rene Roy, secretary-general of the 500,000-member Quebec Federation of Labour. “The wearing of any religious symbol should be forbidden in the workplace of the civil service … in order to ensure the secular character of the state,” said Lucie Grandmont, vice-president of the 40,000-member Quebec union of public employees.
Dress codes that ban religious expression should be part of a new “charter of secularism” that the Quebec government should adopt, said Claudette Carbonneau [pictured], president of the Confederation of National Trade Unions. Such a charter is needed “to avoid anarchy,” Carbonneau said Monday, presenting a brief on behalf of the federation’s 300,000 members at the commission’s hearing on the integration of immigrants in Montreal. That’s the same point of view as the 150,000-member Centrale des syndicats du Quebec, which includes 100,000 who work in the school system, the commission heard.
The unions’ anti-religious attitude – especially the idea to ban hijabs on teachers – got a cold reception from groups as disparate as a Muslim women’s aid organization and the nationalist St.-Jean-Baptiste Society of Montreal. “What that would do is close the door to Muslim women who want to teach,” said Samaa Elibyari, a Montreal community radio host who spoke for the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. “It goes against religious freedoms that are guaranteed in the (Quebec) Charter of Rights.”
Elibyari said Muslim women routinely face discrimination in the workplace. They don’t need unions on their back, too, she said. “When a young teacher calls a school to see if she can do an internship, and is asked on the phone straight out: ‘Do you wear the veil?’; when a cashier at a supermarket is fired and her boss tells her ‘The customers don’t want to see that,’ referring to the veil; when a secretary gets passed over for promotion even if she succeeds in all her French exams, and is told ‘take off that tablecloth’ – is that not discrimination?” Elibyari asked.
Canadian Muslim women’s soccer team fights ban
Sixteen-year-old Sheena Alami calls the flap over Islamic hijab headscarves that has sidelined her Edmonton soccer team shocking. “I was really disappointed that this whole issue was taking place in Canada because we’re supposed to be a multicultural society accepting of different cultures and religions,” she said yesterday.
The Alberta Soccer Association has temporarily banned Alami and her teammates on the Al-Ikhwat (Sisterhood) soccer team from playing until it makes a ruling on the safety of hijabs on the field. Alami, a Grade 10 student at Harry Ainlay Composite High School and the daughter of Afghani immigrants, says she’s worn a headscarf while playing soccer and basketball for years.
Thirteen of the 18 women on the team wear hijabs, and they secured a letter of support from the Edmonton and District Soccer Association. “They said, ‘No problem’,” she recalled. “And we were so relieved and so happy.”
The summer went smoothly but shortly after the indoor season kicked off last month, a Calgary referee barred Safaa Menhem, 14, from playing while wearing a hijab – and an ASA ban on the entire Edmonton Al-Ikhwat team followed.
The ASA allowed Menhem to join her teammates on the pitch last week, while wearing a modified hijab tied at the back of the neck rather than under her chin, but has yet to rule on the Edmonton team.
Hijab ban sidelines Edmonton soccer team
A Muslim female soccer team in Edmonton has had to postpone all their games until the Alberta Soccer Association makes a final decision on players wearing headscarves on the field.
Half the girls on the Al-Ikhwat team wear a hijab, a headscarf worn by some Muslim females in keeping with their belief of dressing modestly.
The provincial association has temporarily banned players from wearing hijabs on the pitch after a referee asked a 14-year-old girl to leave a game in Calgary last month. He said her headscarf posed a safety risk.
The Alberta Soccer Association follows international rules that forbid all headgear, including sweatbands, but said it will review safety issues before making a final ruling on hijabs.
Amereen Chowdhry, a Grade 12 student who’s played with the team for a year and a half wearing her hijab, says it’s not dangerous. “Talk to us directly. Ask us what it’s like so we can show then that it’s not a dangerous issue. Our hijabs don’t have pins in it and they are tucked into our jersey,” she told CBC News.
The team plays in the Edmonton and District Soccer Association’s indoor league. Mike Thorne, the group’s executive director, said women wearing hijabs have been playing in Edmonton for more than seven years without any problems.
Muslim woman sues for being forced to remove headscarf in US jail
A Muslim woman arrested for riding a commuter train without a valid ticket has filed a federal lawsuit in the United States, claiming her religious freedom was violated when she was forced to remove her headscarf when she was taken to jail.
Jameelah Medina also said she was intimidated by a deputy who accused her of being a terrorist and called Islam an “evil” religion, according to the suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
The suit names the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and Deputy Craig Roberts of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
After determining her ticket was invalid, the officers told her to get off at the next station, where a deputy would be waiting for her. Roberts handcuffed Medina, put her in the back of a police car and began driving her to a jail.
During the ride, Roberts berated Medina and Islam, according to the suit. Roberts “accused Medina of being a terrorist and supporting terrorism. He stated that Muslims are evil … and that the United States was in Iraq at God’s direction to squash evil,” read the suit.
At the West Valley Detention Center in San Bernardino, Medina was forced to remove her headscarf despite several attempts to explain to a female deputy why she wore it, the suit said.
After several hours, Medina was released without being charged or fined, her lawyer said.
Associated Press, 6 December 2007
See also ACLU press release, 6 December 2007
Calgary girl gets to play in soccer game after minor modification to hijab
CALGARY – A 14-year-old girl who made national headlines over her determination to wear a Muslim headscarf while playing sports was allowed yesterday to compete in a soccer tournament. Safaa Menhem learned just moments before the game that she had been given the go-ahead to wear her hijab with just a few slight modifications. The pint-sized forward received a rousing ovation when she stepped onto the Calgary Soccer Centre pitch for her first shift. “I’m happy I got to play,” a beaming Safaa said after the game, which her team won 4-1.
Headscarf ban for employees in Ghent
Belgium’s third largest city Ghent has banned its employees from wearing Muslim headscarves and other religious or political symbols. The proposal by the Flemish liberal party was approved in the city council by 26 votes to 23.