Category Archives: Hijab

More BS from Bindel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Julie-BindelYou might have thought that a feminist journalist would welcome the elevation of Caroline Lucas to the leadership of the Green Party and her election as the party’s first MP. But not Julie Bindel. In a piece of monumental ignorance published in Standpoint Magazine, Bindel writes:

“Lucas says she is a feminist. Yet she has shared a platform with those who believe that adulterous females should be stoned to death. In 2004, Lucas supported the International Network Assembly for the Protection of Hijab (Pro-Hijab), which was formed in response to proposed headscarf bans in France and parts of Germany. Its aim was to ‘dispel myths about the hijab’ to lobby to reverse bans already brought in and to prevent more ‘abuses of democracy’ being imposed. Lucas joined the former Respect MP George Galloway and London’s ex-mayor Ken Livingstone on the platform at the assembly’s publicly-funded City Hall launch.

“The guest of honour was Livingstone’s old friend Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, who has spoken in favour of female genital mutilation, wife-beating, the execution of homosexuals in Islamic states, the destruction of the Jewish people, the use of suicide bombs against innocent civilians and the blaming of rape victims who do not dress modestly.”

There is barely a word of this that is accurate. Neither Caroline Lucas nor George Galloway was on the platform at the Pro-Hijab launch in City Hall in July 2004, and there certainly were no speakers who believed that “adulterous females should be stoned to death”. As for Qaradawi he is opposed to genital mutilation and wife-beating, doesn’t believe that homosexuals should be executed, that the Jewish people should be detroyed or that suicide bombing against innocent civilians is justified, and he has never blamed rape victims for not dressing modestly.

But what can you expect from a writer who finds it reprehensible that “Lucas supports a boycott of Israeli goods”, and who has been applauded by fascists for promoting their racist myth about “Asian grooming”? Looks to me like Bindel is bidding to become the UK equivalent of Phyllis Chesler.

Stockholm: student wearing niqab begins teacher training – Equality Ombudsman still to rule on earlier case

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A student wearing the niqab has begun attending a teacher training course in Stockholm, more than one and a half years after another woman reported a school that would not allow her to wear the headscarf in class.

Employers and principals are still waiting for a guiding principle about the niqab in classrooms from the Equality Ombudsman (DO) following the woman’s notification last year, Dagens Nyheter (DN) reported on Monday.

The new student is studying at Stockholm University. “Almost no municipality or school that I know of allows the niqab,” Stockholm University lawyer and equality coordinator Christian Edling told the newspaper. “It would be easier if we had guidance.”

The DO explained that there is the delay in the case because it is not a priority and that it requires careful treatment due to the complexities involved.

“I think it is deplorable that there such a long time has passed since this girl notified the city of Stockholm and nothing has happened,” city school commissioner Lotta Edholm told DN.

Edholm has previously reported the DO to the parliamentary ombudsman for the slow process. The DO did not offer a timeframe on when it can present a decision on new guidelines.

“In general terms, I can say that one should try to find a pragmatic solution, but the right to education is deeply rooted in law,” George Svéd, director of DO’s education division, told DN.

The Local, 6 September 2010

Swedish radio exposes anti-Muslim discrimination by employers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sveriges Radio hijab

A Swedish Radio News investigation suggests that women who wear a headscarf have a much harder time getting a job.

The P3 radio channel invented two imaginary job seekers who applied for 200 posts. They had essentially identical qualifications, spoke the same number of languages and were both involved in clubs and other activities.

The only difference was that one was wearing a headscarf on her photo and had a non-Swedish sounding name. But there was a clear difference in the result: “Emma Svensson” was contacted by 35 employers, while “Evin Ziadi” only heard back from eight.

Sveriges Radio, 30 August 2010

France’s ban on the veil has nothing to do with women’s emancipation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

If there were any doubt about the motivation for the ban on Islamic face coverings passed by the French national assembly in July, the Sarkozy government’s actions in August have laid them to rest.

The issue isn’t women’s emancipation, for all the pious rhetoric we’ve heard about equality being a “primordial value” of the French nation. It isn’t the danger that terrorists and robbers will hide behind burqas in order to blow up buildings or rob banks – the exemptions in the law for motorcycle helmets, fencing and ski masks, and carnival costumes quickly dispel that argument. And it isn’t about enforcing openness and transparency as an aspect of French culture.

Outlawing what the French call “le voile intégral” is part of a campaign to purify and protect national identity, purging so-called foreign elements – although many of these “foreigners” are actually French citizens – from membership in the nation. It is part of a cynical bid by Sarkozy and his party to capture the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim animus that has brought electoral gains to the rightwing National Front party and to disarm the Socialist opposition, which has so far offered little resistance to the xenophobic campaign.

Joan Wallach Scott, author of that excellent book The Politics of the Veil, writes in the Guardian, 26 August 2010

Australia: NSW government opposes veil ban bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally says her government will not support a ban on the burqa, the head and body veil worn by some Muslim women, because “such a ban has no place in multicultural NSW”.

Christian Democratic Party MP Fred Nile had called on both major parties to allow members a conscience vote on his private member’s bill, which was introduced into Parliament in June. Mr Nile wants NSW to follow a growing number of European countries trying to ban women from wearing in public the burqa and the niqab, a veil with a narrow opening for the eyes.

However, at an interfaith dinner with about 300 religious leaders last night, Ms Keneally announced that cabinet had decided to oppose the Full-face Coverings Prohibition Bill, which is modelled on legislation recently passed by the Belgian Parliament.

“We are fortunate to live in a largely harmonious state where differences in language, culture and faith are rightly seen as things which enliven and strengthen our society,” Ms Keneally said. “It is in this spirit that the NSW Government has decided to oppose the bill seeking to create a criminal offence of wearing a burqa in public places.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 24 August 2010

Imane Boudlal rejects Disney’s substitute hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Disney substitute hijab

The Muslim restaurant hostess whom Disney has prohibited from wearing her hijab, a religious head scarf, while at work has rejected as “offensive” what the entertainment giant describes as an attempt to accommodate her.

The hostess has been sent home from work without pay seven times since Aug. 15 when, just days after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began, Imane Boudlal, 26, wore her hijab to work. She was offered a choice between working in a location out of view of customers or going home.

Boudlal had tried for two months to reach an accommodation with the company, which said it was considering her request for a “religious accommodation,” requests Disney says it considers.

Disney officials yesterday offered Boudlal a hat to wear on top of a bonnet in place of her own white headscarf that the company has said doesn’t meet the “Disney look.”

After trying on the new uniform, Boudlal told her managers it does not meet her religious needs. Boudlal said she found the hat embarrassing, especially because she would be the only restaurant employee forced to wear it.

“The hat makes a joke of me and my religion, and draws even more attention to me,” Boudlal said. “It’s unacceptable.”

“They don’t want me to look like a Muslim,” Boudlal continued. “They just don’t want the head covering to look like a hijab.”

Continue reading →

Norwegian court rules hijab ban illegal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Norwegian administrative court on Friday said a ban on police women wearing the Islamic headscarf was illegal, in response to a government refusal in 2009 to allow officers to don the hijab.

The Norwegian Equality Tribunal said in a non-binding opinion that the ban ran counter to the country’s freedom of religion and anti-discrimination laws by depriving a whole category of women from access to the police profession.

“The official objective is for the police to mirror Norwegian society as a whole,” the tribunal wrote in its ruling. “The society is multi-cultural and diverse, and the police should also illustrate this diversity, precisely to allow it to maintain trust at large” among the population, it added.

After a Muslim woman said she wanted to become a police officer, but did not want to remove her hijab, Norway’s centre-left government last year first approved a police decision to allow its female officers to wear the Islamic headscarf.

However, the ruling coalition quickly backtracked after the decision sparked outrage and charges from the largest member of the opposition, the far-right Progress Party, that it was allowing the “gradual Islamisation” of the country.

The justice ministry, which theoretically can choose to ignore the ruling, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

AFP, 20 August 2010

Germany: FDP politician calls for ban on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The liberal parliamentarian Serkan Toeren has demanded a ban on the burqa in Germany. Toeren, who represents the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the Bundestag, says it was time to have an open debate on the issue. Toeren, whose constituency is in Lower Saxony, said the full body covering worn by some Muslim women, obscuring the face, posed a threat to public security, and undermined the individuals.

“Wearing a full-body veil like the burqa is a breach of human dignity.” Toeren told the German daily Leipziger Volkszeitung. Women who choose to wear the burqa voluntarily cannot be accepted either, because individuals cannot control human dignity.”

According to Toeren, the burqa robs women of their dignity and freedom: “It is supposed to make women more or less invisible, and not present. The burqa is a mobile women’s prison.”

The FDP spokesman for integration, who is of Turkish origin, does not accept religious reasons as justification for wearing the full-body veil. “The burqa is not a religious, but rather a political symbol against our state order and a means of suppressing women,” said Toeren.

Deutsche Welle, 20 August 2010

MP pleased that women who wore niqab have gone

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MP Philip Hollobone says he is pleased that the only two women in Kettering who wear burkas have left.

Inam Khan, chairman of Kettering Muslim Association, said the two women, whose husbands were doctors at Kettering General Hospital, left the town shortly after Mr Hollobone first criticised the burka in February.

The Kettering MP, who is trying to change the law to ban the burka, which some Muslim women wear to cover their face, said: “I’m pleased to hear that. Wearing the full face veil is inappropriate. To hear that no-one in the town is wearing one is a sign of an integrated society.”

Despite having no constituents who wear one, Mr Hollobone has tabled a private members bill in the House of Commons calling for the burka to be banned.

Continue reading →