Category Archives: Hijab

Australia: senator’s burqa ban call condemned as ‘stupid and ignorant’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cory Bernardi ban burqa tweet

Comments by a Liberal senator linking terror raids with a campaign to ban the burqa have been described as “stupid and ignorant” and designed to “feed prejudice”.

As news broke of the mass counter-terrorism operation across Sydney and Brisbane, in which 15 people were arrested and one charged, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi took to Twitter to rail against the burqa as a “shroud of oppression”.

Senator Bernardi has been a long-time critic of the burqa, arguing that it is a “symbol of female oppression and Islamic culture”, carries security and identification risks and is “un-Australian”.

Labor leader Bill Shorten on Thursday criticised Senator Bernardi’s remarks, telling Fairfax Media that the last thing the country needed was “stupid” and “ignorant” comments from government MPs.

“Why on earth is this out-of-touch, out-of-line senator on a rampage with his ignorant and stupid comments?” asked Mr Shorten. “This senator’s comments should have no part to play in public life, fuelling fear and suspicion.”

Mr Abbott stopped short of rebuking his backbencher on Thursday when asked about Senator Bernardi’s comments at a media conference in the Northern Territory, saying there was no need to “fret about people’s faith” or “fret about what people wear”.

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FIBA grants players permission to wear religious head coverings on a trial basis

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bilqis Abdul-QaadirInternational basketball’s governing body said Tuesday that players will be allowed to wear religious head coverings, such as hijabs or turbans, on a trial basis in some competitions.

FIBA’s central board met over the weekend at the men’s world cup and voted to allow a two-year testing phase that would let players wear head coverings.

Previous FIBA rules only allowed a player to wear a 5-centimeter headband to control hair and sweat. That drew objections that the group was discriminating against Muslim and Sikh players, who wear head coverings for religious reasons.

“We welcome this policy change by FIBA because it allows Muslims, Sikhs and others who wear religious head coverings to take part in the sport that they love while maintaining their beliefs,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “FIBA should be congratulated for responding positively to all those who sought reasonable religious accommodation for athletes of all faiths.”

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The untold cases of Islamophobia in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fourteen year olds resolutely defending hostility towards their Muslim neighbours.

When it was said that nothing justified the abuse of a woman just because she decided to dress differently, the response was that it was because “she probably has a bomb underneath her clothes”.

Muslims were openly derided as terrorists by a significant number of over zealous white students.

Students whom I later realised were themselves victims of a raucous media campaign to give them an enemy and distract them from the disfranchisement and misery faced by many of their families.

Perhaps our words and slides were just too high brow and academic for young minds to relate to.

So when a victim stood to speak honestly and emotionally of her harrowing experiences which included having dogs set upon her and her young children and having an unopened beer can thrown at her whilst she was driving, the unrelenting coldness amongst the audience remained.

Maybe the sight of a young classmate breaking down in tears after relating the incident of seeing his mother racially abused at a local supermarket over the weekend just gone would bring a modicum of sympathy. Again none was forthcoming.

Amongst the young faces and clearly in the minority young Muslim girls wearing hijabs, others without and their male compatriots sat glum faced seemingly unable to speak up or defend their rights to be treated as human beings.

Faisal Hanif recounts his experience of promoting human rights in a Rotherham secondary school.

Asian Image, 15 September 2014

Birmingham Tory claims Muslim councillor got preferential treatment because she wears a headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

James HutchingsA senior Conservative has become embroiled in a row after suggesting a Muslim Labour councillor may have got preferential treatment because she was wearing a headscarf.

Tory education spokesman Coun James Hutchings (Edgbaston), who later apologised, made his comment at a watchdog committee discussing the fallout from the Trojan Horse scandal in inner-city schools.

He was annoyed the only committee member named in minutes of a previous meeting was Muslim Labour chairwoman Coun Mariam Khan (Washwood Heath), who wears a hijab, saying that all other members had been overlooked. Coun Hutchings said: “The only person mentioned by name is you, I don’t know why you were so privileged, perhaps it is because you are the only person wearing a headscarf.”

Coun Khan replied: “I assure you it is probably nothing to do with how I dress or whether or not I wear a headscarf.”

Other committee members immediately declared their shock at the statement. Cabinet member for children’s services Brigid Jones said: “Did you seriously suggest a woman got preferential treatment because of the way she dressed? I want to place on record my astonishment and absolute disgust.”

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Teacher suspended over alleged comment about Muslim student’s headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A teacher has been suspended after she allegedly made a comment about a Muslim student’s headscarf. Parents complained to police and Bolton Council following the alleged incident at Sunning Hill Primary School, Daubhill, on Wednesday.

It is claimed a girl at the school was fidgeting with her headscarf and the teacher involved was heard to say: “If she was in my class I would chuck the scarf in the bin.” The woman is alleged to have made the comments about the traditional female Muslim head dress in earshot of several pupils.

Bolton Council said the teacher had been suspended pending an investigation.

Bolton News, 13 September 2014

Fred Nile move to ban burqa ‘anti-Islamic’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CDP ban face-coveringsChristian Democratic Party leader Fred Nile’s latest attempt to ban the burqa across NSW has been branded anti-Islamic and a political stunt.

Mr Nile’s private member’s bill, introduced in state parliament on Thursday, would prohibit the wearing of the burqa and other face coverings in public. It follows similar bans in Belgium and France, and comes after his failed attempt at blacklisting face coverings in 2010.

While Mr Nile stressed that his bill’s text did not include the words “burqa or Muslim”, much of his speech to parliament about the plan focused on the burqa.

He says the measures come at an “opportune” time after Wednesday’s arrest in Queensland of two men allegedly linked to terrorist groups in Syria. “We also face the new Islamic State (IS) terrorist threat, whose black uniforms for both men and women include face coverings to prevent identification,” he told the upper house.

Labor MP Amanda Fazio said the measures were “anti-Islamic” and had more to do with Mr Nile’s bid for re-election in March. “These measures are the opposite of everything we’re trying to achieve in Australia in terms of being inclusive and having a harmonious society where we respect difference,” she told AAP.

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Spain opens door to ban on burqas

Posted on by Bob Pitt

LA RED DESARTICULADA EN CEUTA PUDO ENVIAR 50 YIHADISTAS A SIRIA, SEGÚN DÍAZSpain’s interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz on Wednesday said the Spanish government would consider including a ban on burqas as part of a packet of planned new security reforms.

Speaking at a press conference, Díaz said that a ban on burqas could be included in the final version of Spain’s draft Citizen Security Law, Spain’s 20 minutos newspaper reported.

The draft bill, yet to be passed in the country’s parliament, already includes provisions banning people from hiding their faces in demonstrations, Díaz noted.

Now could be a “good moment” to look to obtain “a level of consensus” on this issue, the interior minister noted.

Díaz stressed his department had no powers when it came to issues affecting the dignity of women, but could rule against the wearing of burqas and other full face veils on the grounds they made identification of people difficult.

“I don’t want to say a ban is necessary, ” the minister said, but repeated this could be “a good moment” to consider such a prohibition.

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Muslim woman attacked on Vienna train

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Zeliha CicekA 37-year-old Muslim woman from Vienna has complained to police after being attacked by a woman whilst travelling on Vienna’s metro.

She believes that the woman, who hit her in the face, did so because she was wearing a headscarf. Police said they believed the attacker was “disturbed”.

Zeliha Cicek is the third Muslim to have been assaulted in Vienna in the last month.

Cicek, a school teacher and mother of three children, is ethnically Turkish. She said she was talking to her sister on an U3 underground train on her mobile phone when the woman started shouting at her in English. “I calmly told her she could speak to me in German and suddenly she stood up and slapped me in the face. I dropped my phone and it broke, I was so shocked,” she said.

An English man came to Cicek’s aid but the angry woman scratched his face. She got out of the train at Stephansplatz – and despite Cicek screaming that she had attacked her the woman was able to flee without being stopped.

Cicek told the Kurier newspaper that she didn’t believe that the woman was drunk or mad. “The English man also thought that she had a problem with me wearing the headscarf,” she said.

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Ombudswoman’s defence of hijab sparks heated debate in the Czech Republic

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anna ŠabatováTwo young women from Somalia and Afghanistan who were studying at a Prague nursing school left the institution last year after the headmistress refused to allow them to wear headscarves in class.

While the headmistress claimed that the dispute was not about religious freedoms but about adhering to the rules of a given institution, Ombudswoman Anna Šabatová has now defended their right to do so:

“It was indirect discrimination. The girls were, in effect, denied access to education. A school principal cannot use an internal regulation to decide if someone can cover their head with a scarf, which in this case happened to be a religious symbol.”

The Ombudswoman’s stand immediately sparked heated debate about whether students should be allowed to wear headscarves and other religious symbols. Radko Hokovský from the Prague-based European Values think tank argues that the Ombudswoman’s verdict does not reflect the broader situation in Europe:

“The veil is not only a religious symbol. According to a verdict by the German Constitutional Court and other international institutions in Europe, including the European Court of Human Rights, it is also perceived as a form of exclusion within schools and also as discrimination against women.”

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Muslim basketball player speaks out against international federation’s ban on religious headwear

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Indira KaljoThe International Basketball Association’s ban on religious headwear like turbans, hijabs, and yarmulkes worn by some Sikh, Muslim, and Jewish basketball players is an “extremely disrespectful” way of forcing players to choose between their favorite sport and their religion, one of the Muslim women fighting to overturn the ban told ThinkProgress this week.

Indira Kaljo, a Bosnian-American Muslim who played college basketball for Tulane University, began challenging FIBA’s ban on religious headwear this year, when she decided she wanted to wear a hijab during games but could not if she wanted to play professionally in Europe.

Kaljo did not wear the hijab while playing at Tulane or during a year of professional ball in Ireland. But after deciding to adhere more closely to her faith, Kaljo took her story to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in an effort to pressure FIBA into changing its policy. She played covered in an American summer league this year and does not want to return to Europe if she cannot wear a hijab.

“I shouldn’t have to decide between faith and sports,” Kaljo said in a phone interview with ThinkProgress this week. “And not just me, players around the world.”

“It’s extremely disrespectful,” Kaljo said. “There’s no other way to put it other than, it’s disrespectful.”

The policy has drawn international criticism in the form of official complaints from the Turkish basketball federation, social media movements, online petitions, and even a letter from American lawmakers after multiple Indian Sikh players were told they could not wear traditional religious turbans during games in different Asian federation tournaments. It has been a focus too of Muslim groups and women players who have challenged it, including the women’s team from the Maldives, which withdrew from an under-18 Asian tournament this month when officials refused to let players wear hijabs during games.

FIBA was scheduled to review the policy during executive meetings in Spain this week before the start of the men’s basketball World Cup. But it announced Thursday that it would indefinitely delay its review, meaning the ban will remain in place.

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