Category Archives: Hijab

Off with their headscarves, says BHL

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Off with their headscarves

Sunday Times, 1 February 2004

Bernard-Henri Levy, the maverick French philosopher, says his country should vote this week to ban Muslim women’s hijabs

Next week the French parliament will vote on whether to introduce a law banning beards, veils, scarves and other “religious symbols” from state schools and institutions. The move to ban the wearing of headscarves in schools by Muslim girls has created fears among many that other governments will follow the French example, with some people even suggesting that a European Union-wide ban could be a possibility.

Despite the perverse effects, or even the risks to freedom of speech and expression that have been endlessly emphasised, I am in favour of this controversial law.

I am for it primarily because of my belief in the principle of secularity, a belief that religion should have no place in civil affairs nor in the state. This does not seem like a particularly contemporary issue. The very word sounds like a hollow notion nowadays, something outdated. But it is the basis upon which those supremely important French principles of liberty, equality and brotherhood are founded.

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Scarf rally in Scottish capital

Posted on by Eddie Truman

About 250 protesters have demonstrated outside the French Consulate in Edinburgh against plans to ban the wearing of headscarves in France’s state schools.

The protest was organised by the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) as part of an international day of action.

Other campaigners travelled from Scotland to join a march in London.

The association said it was encouraging non-Muslims to wear headscarves in the Scottish capital to show “solidarity” with those in France.

Organisers said 25 protests were planned across the world, including London, Paris and several other French cities.

BBC News, 17 January 2004

France’s wake-up call

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The most vocal advocate of Wahhabism in France is Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss philosophy teacher who happens to be the grandson of Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ramadan has been very active in France during the past ten years, spreading his extremist views and becoming the unofficial voice of French Islam.”

Seriously – Tariq Ramadan is a proponent of Wahhabism! Who is responsible for this nonsense? It’s Olivier Guitta.

Front Page Magazine, 23 December 2003

Secularism gone mad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A 13-year-old girl is an exemplary pupil in every way; she listens carefully to her teachers, does her homework and is a cheerful member of the class. But in one respect, according to President Jacques Chirac yesterday, her behaviour threatens nothing less than the social peace and national cohesion of the French nation – she insists on wearing a headscarf. All around her, pupils are wearing the kind of outlandish clothes and hairstyles one would expect of teenagers anywhere in Europe. But there is one garment that, the president has declared, challenges the secularity of republican France: the square metre or so of material that covers this girl’s hair.”

Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian, 18 December 2003

A letter to Jean-Pierre Raffarin on the hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“We have received the news of banning Hijab in schools and universities in France with great enthusiasm and pleasure.”

Nadia Mahmood of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq / Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq writes to the French prime minister applauding the decision to ban the Islamic headscarf in schools.

Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, 25 November 2003

The battle of the veil

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Laurent Levy, a Paris lawyer who describes himself as an atheist, has become a champion for the freedom of religious expression since Lila, 18, and Alma, 16, were barred from their lycée in the northern suburb of Aubervilliers.

The girls – whose mother is a non-observant Algerian – were told the manner in which they wore the headscarf was “ostentatious” and unsuitable for sports lessons. The school authorities also accused them of taking part in a demonstration in their defence by around a hundred fellow students.

AFP, 1 October 2003

See also BBC News, 1 October 2003

Hijab: ‘a weapon of visual terrorism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“This fake Islamic hijab is nothing but a political prop, a weapon of visual terrorism. It is the symbol of a totalitarian ideology inspired more by Nazism and Communism than by Islam…. It is used as a means of exerting pressure on Muslim women who do not wear it because they do not share the sick ideology behind it. It is a sign of support for extremists who wish to impose their creed, first on Muslims, and then on the world through psychological pressure, violence, terror, and, ultimately, war.”

Right-wing Iranian exile Amir Taheri commenting on the French hijab ban in the New York Post, 15 August 2003.

Reproduced on the website of the US neocon consultancy Benador Associates.

Muslim leaders probe reported attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim leaders in Swansea are investigating a claim that a woman ripped a headscarf from a Muslim schoolgirl amid claims that a mosque in the city has been stoned and death threats received.

Political and religious leaders in Wales have issued calls for restraint amid concerns that Muslims could become targets for racial attacks following the terrorist attacks in the US.

South Wales Police have refused to confirm or deny that the incidents have been reported to them. However, on Tuesday the force issued a statement which said it is recording an increase in the number of racial attacks.

Omar Williams, who runs a social welfare group in Swansea, said he was investigating claims Muslim pupils in the city have been abused. It is alleged an adult tore off a Muslim girl’s headscarf in one incident and Kayfer has referred the incident to the police.

Muslims have also received malicious telephone calls and windows and mosques have been vandalised.

BBC News, 19 September 2001