Jack Straw: Muslim women ‘should discard veils completely’

Take Off Your VeilCabinet Minister Jack Straw today waded further into the row over his call for Muslim women to remove their veils by saying he would like the garments to be discarded altogether.

The former Foreign Secretary sparked controversy when he revealed that he asks female visitors to his constituency surgery to uncover their faces, to improve “community relations”. But asked on the BBC if he would rather the veils be discarded completely, Mr Straw said: “Yes. It needs to be made clear I am not talking about being prescriptive but with all the caveats, yes, I would rather.”

Last night, Muslim leaders in the Commons Leader’s Blackburn constituency said many Muslim women would find his comments, originally made in his local newspaper, “offensive and disturbing” and Respect MP George Galloway demanded his resignation. But Mr Straw said the increasing trend towards covering facial features was “bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult”.

Associated Press, 6 October 2006

Straw’s Lancashire Telegraph article is reprinted in the Guardian, 6 October 2006

Straw’s veil comments spark anger

Jack_StrawJack Straw, the ex-foreign secretary, has angered Muslim groups by suggesting women who wear veils can make relations between communities more difficult. The Blackburn MP says the veil is a “visible statement of separation and of difference” and he asks women visiting his surgery to consider removing it.

The remarks attracted an angry response from some organisations representing Muslims.

It was “astonishing” that Mr Straw chose to “selectively discriminate on the basis of religion”, said Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission. Halima Hussain, from civil liberties group the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, asked BBC News 24: “Who is Jack Straw to comment on negative symbols within a religion that is not his own?” Rajnaara Akhtar, who chairs the organisation Protect-Hijab, suggested the “appalling” comments showed “a deep lack of understanding”.

BBC News, 5 October 2006

See also “Straw in plea to Muslim women: Take off your veils”, Lancashire Telegraph, 5 October 2006

And Jack Straw, “I want to unveil my views on an important issue”, Lancashire Telegraph, 5 October 2006

Hijab-wearing television presenters? ‘I’ll dispose of my TV set’

A letter writer in the Torygraph takes issue with Ruth Kelly’s suggestion that British TV should employ hijab-wearing Muslim women in more visible roles:

“On the very day that the Islamic radical Abu Izzadeen declares our Home Secretary persona non grata in a Muslim enclave, Ruth Kelly urges that Muslim women wearing the hijab should be given front-line roles in the media.Utterly predictable, of course, but the moment I see a female television presenter wearing the hijab will be the point at which I shall dispose of my set and surrender the licence. This is Britain, not Saudi Arabia or Iran.”

Daily Telegraph, 22 September 2006

‘Deadly peril of allowing Muslim ghettos to flourish’

In today’s Daily Express, Mark Palmer warns of the threat from “Muslim ghettos”. He makes a comparison with “… the Chinese community, whose members do tend to live in various Chinatown areas of big cities but who, by virtue of their businesses and their appreciation of what this country has to offer, readily feel integrated…. The new Muslim ghettos by contrast are ideal breeding grounds for fanatics and unless we cut off the supply then we might as well admit defeat to the terrorists…. And it is no good Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly saying that Muslim women wearing hijab, or headscarves, should be employed in front-line roles in the public eye. She thinks hijab-wearing Muslims presenting the news on TV will encourage more Muslim women to apply for jobs in the media. It might – but it will also encourage the likes of Izzadeen to push on with their relentless battle to ‘implement’ Islam. Rather than making Muslims feel more a part of British society, it could just as easily provide them with a further incentive to separate themselves.”

TV roles urged for women wearing hijab

Muslim women wearing hijab, or headscarves, should be employed in front-line roles in the media, said a report published yesterday by Ruth Kelly, the minister for women. More women wearing hijab needed to be seen in the public eye, particularly on television, to encourage more Muslim women to put themselves forward, it said. Miss Kelly said the Government was giving priority to helping ethnic minority women to overcome discrimination at work and play a more prominent role in public life.

Daily Telegraph, 21 September 2006


Well, at least Ruth Kelly can get something right. Stand by for a spate of denunciations in the Torygraph’s letters column.

Our friend Giraldus Cambrensis provides an example of what to expect: “Ruth Kelly wants more hijabs on TV? Is she is an executive of a TV company? When Muslims comprise only 3% of the population, what do the other 97% of the population want on their telly? Hopefully her words will be treated as the vacuous inanities that they really are. What about the stamp-collectors in Britain? Why are they not represented on the television?”

Western Resistance, 21 September 2006

‘Our failure to confront radical Islam is there for all to see’

“At long last, the debate on Islamism as politics, not Islam as religion, is out in the open. Two weeks ago, Jack Straw might have felt he was taking a risk when publishing his now notorious article on the Muslim veil. However, he was pushing at an open door. From across the political spectrum there is now common consent that the old multicultural emperor, before whom generation of politicians have made obeisance, is now a pitiful, naked sight.”

Daily Telegraph, 17 October 2006

Melanie Phillips, perhaps? No, the appalling Denis MacShane – the man who chaired the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism that issued the ludicrous report claiming that Islamists in Britain are in an alliance with the BNP.

In 2003 MacShane delivered a speech in which he said: “It is time for the elected and community leaders of the British Muslims to make a choice – the British way, based on political dialogue and non-violent protests, or the way of the terrorists, against which the whole democratic world is uniting.” In response, his constituency party passed a resolution stating: “Denis MacShane is inciting racial and religious hatred, by publicly implying in the press that the Muslim community elected members and leaders are in favour of terrorism and being anti-British.”

Guardian, 28 November 2003

5 years on, US Muslims decry prejudice

Five years after the terrorist 9/11 attacks, many American Muslims complain they continue to face discrimination and stereotyping because of their Islamic attires or identities, while others blame the problem on the misconception of Islam and urge fellow Muslims to work hard to reflect the right picture of their faith.

“The prejudice against Muslims is widespread since 9/11,” Dr. Siraj Islam Mufti, a retired faculty from the University of Arizona and a retired chaplain from the US Department of Justice told IslamOnline.net. “Some advocate profiling based on ethnicity, religion and even identification cards. As a result, there is an increase in a variety of hate crimes committed against Muslims,” added Mufti, now a Contractor to the Federal Correctional Institutions as Imam and a contract Imam with the Corrections Corporation of America in Arizona.

“I experienced some difficult moments of racial profiles,” insists hijab-clad Iman Hadi, remembering she faced her worst experience at the JFK airport in her way back from Egypt. “We were singled out and were detained for about 6 hours for no reason,” she complained. “They took us to a room where I found tens of Arabs and Muslims, even Egypt Air’s pilots were waiting there. They asked us several questions and treated us in a very aggressive way. And the officer was very rude and was trying to humiliate us.”

For Hadi, this was the moment when she felt stranger and unsafe in her own country where she lived for more than 20 years.

Islam Online, 12 September 2006

‘Most Brits don’t trust Muslims’

The Daily Star reports an opinion poll revealing that 79% of respondents said they’d feel uncomfortable living next to a Muslim. The Star has no doubt where the blame for this lies. In addition to the effects of 7/7:

“Many moderate Muslims seem intent on leading separate lives. They send their children to faith schools, clad their women in burqas and talk of bringing Sharia law to Britain.”

The incitement of anti-Muslim bigotry by right-wing rags like the Star of course plays no role at all.

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‘Burka’ is the mark of female oppression – Express columnist

A burka is the mark of female oppression

By Virginia Blackburn

Daily Express, 7 September 2006

I LIVE in a nice part of London known as Little Tehran. The place has a pleasant atmosphere – the Iranians who live here arrived after the 1979 revolution and are sympathetic to the West.

They brought much that is good with them, including a couple of excellent Persian restaurants, shops where you can buy caviar at about a tenth the price of elsewhere and a work ethic that means they are determined to succeed in their new life.

But, just occasionally, I see something that chills me as much now as it ever did: a woman wearing the full burka.

Even the most politically correct of people know in their hearts that the burka is possibly the strongest visual indication of female oppression in the world.

In countries where it is commonplace, and in some cases mandatory, women are not allowed to vote, drive or leave the house unaccompanied by a male relative.

Adultery, like homosexuality, is punishable by death. Forced marriage, an event better classed as rape, is common – as is female circumcision. Rape itself is almost impossible to prove and shames the victim, not the criminal.

The burka is the sign of a medieval society – although even in the Middle Ages in this country, women were treated better than they are now in certain countries in the Middle East.

But no one has been allowed to say any of this for fear of being labelled racist, dismissive of another culture, or a Little Englander. Only a very few who saw what was really going on looked on and despaired.

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