French lawmakers will begin on July 6 to debate a government proposal to ban the Muslim full-face veil from public spaces, a minister said on Tuesday.
The lower house National Assembly will read the bill before it passes to the Senate in September and it could be adopted into law soon after, said Henri de Raincourt, the minister for parliamentary relations.
Christian Democratic Party MP Fred Nile has succeeded in introducing a bill to ban the wearing of the burqa in the NSW Upper House. Mr Nile introduced his private member’s bill, seeking to ban the wearing of the burqa and other face veils in public, shortly after 8pm (AEST) on Tuesday.
Last month, a debate on the same bill was voted down by the NSW Upper House.
Greens MP John Kaye said only the four Greens MPs and Family First MP Gordon Moyes voted against introducing the bill on Tuesday. “Last month the coalition and the government did the right thing and said no, they would not allow the Upper House to be home to this kind of racist dog whistling,” Mr Kaye told AAP on Tuesday. “This time they caved in.”
Mr Kaye said Mr Nile’s bill has opened the door to a “dangerous and divisive attack on one of NSW’s communities”.
“Letting loose the ugly bigotry that lies behind this bill will only encourage hostility to the Muslim community,” he said. “While no woman should be forced to wear a burqa or any other form of clothing, this absurd bill will do nothing to enhance the rights of women.”
The bill has been adjourned until September 2010.
See also Sydney Morning Herald, 23 June 2010
Racists launched a vicious attack on a Muslim woman who was struck on the head and almost had her headscarf torn off. They also hurled racial abuse at the mother and her young daughter as they walked through the city.
The shocking assault has been condemned by the city’s Muslim community, along with religious leaders across Exeter. Hayat Kaddouri Roddy, of Polsloe Road, Exeter, has spoken of the frightening attack in which she describes her attackers as “animals”.
The 37-year-old was with her 13-year-old daughter Huda when the assault happened in Edmund Street, in the St David’s area of Exeter, close to the subway, at around 12.30pm on Tuesday. Both were wearing hijab head-dresses, and Hayat also had on a traditional Muslim jilbab – a long dress.
Moroccan-born Hayat, who has lived in the UK for 17 years and in Exeter for several years, and her daughter were stopped by two teenagers, a boy and girl aged around 17 to 18, who refused to let them pass. They racially abused the woman before a man aged around 27 joined in the attack.
Police are investigating the incident and are appealing for witnesses to contact them.
Hayat said: “This couple stopped us and said they weren’t going to let us pass. They said ‘you don’t belong to this country’. I kept really calm and there was a man behind me and I told him the couple wouldn’t let me pass.
“I thought maybe he would be supportive and help but all of a sudden, he stopped next to me and hit me on the head and tried to pull off my headscarf. He didn’t manage to pull it off completely but he really pulled it hard. And he was saying nasty words to me.”
Via London Muslim
Racial profiling and some politicians exploiting racial and xenophobic stereotypes persist in France despite progress in fighting discrimination, a Council of Europe report said Tuesday.
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) issued its fourth report on France with positive comments on the country’s High Authority against Discrimination and for Equality (HALDE) for “its key and growing role in the fight against racism”.
However, “while there had been improvements in certain areas, some issues gave rise for concern, such as minorities’ perception of the police, prejudice against Muslims and the tone of the immigration debate,” said Nils Muiznieks, chair of ECRI, the Council’s independent human rights body.
Many racial acts go unreported and for those that are referred to authorities there is a low conviction rate, the report said. “The police frequently resort to racial profiling and take law enforcement decisions on the basis of racial, ethnic or religious stereotypes” rather than individual behaviour, it said.
In the political arena, the report noted that most politicians condemn openly racial comments and race-related acts, but that there are some who exploit the issue. In relation to immigration, “there is widespread suspicion that non-citizens engage in fraud to obtain residence permits and access to rights,” the report said.
Regarding Muslims, part of French society doubts their willingness and ability to “respect French values”. “The debate on the prohibition of the niqab (the face-covering veil) has increased feelings of discrimination among Muslims and may result in further excluding some Muslim women from society,” the report said about the government’s considering a ban on Muslim women wearing the full veil in public.
Problems of discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, nationality or ethnic origin persists in access to employment, education, housing, and goods and services, the report added.
Thus the headline to a report that the father and brother of a young Canadian woman named Aqsa Parvez have been sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder in 2007.
The report begins: “Just days after a Punjab man was jailed for life in honour killing of his daughter-in-law, a Pakistani father, along with his son, here too faces life behind bars for honour killing of his young girl for her refusal to wear the hijab.”
But it seems clear that Aqsa Parvez’s tragic death did not in fact result from “her refusal to wear the hijab”. Though this has been the media spin put on her murder, it is a distortion.
The friend at whose house Aqsa was staying after leaving her own home stated that, at the time of Aqsa’s murder, her rejection of her father’s demand that she wear a headscarf was not a major cause of conflict between Aqsa and her family.
According to one report, the issue of the hijab had arisen in 2006 but had been resolved after Aqsa left home on an earlier occasion: “Upon her return, her mother took her shopping for Western clothes and she was allowed to attend school in non-traditional clothes.” Another report confirms that, following this dispute, Aqsa’s father “relented, and allowed her to wear urban-style jeans and T-shirts to school”.
The conflict would appear to have been a much broader one between a young woman who wanted to live a westernised lifestyle and culturally conservative male relatives who regarded her behaviour as an attack on the family’s honour. Such notions of honour are a feature of many backward rural societies across the world and are not associated with any particular faith.
So why was media so intent on depicting the hijab as the main motive for Aqsa’s killing? The reason is is not hard to identify. It was an attempt to pin the blame on Islam as part of an ongoing campaign against Muslims and multiculturalism.
Spain’s government plans to ban the use of the Islamic burqa in public places under a proposed new law on religious freedom, the justice minister said Tuesday.
“We believe that there are things like the burqa which are hard to reconcile with human dignity and which especially pose problems of identification in public places,” Francisco Caamano told reporters. The new law “will have to include measures on these symbols which impede identification in public places” for reasons of “security”, Caamano said.
His remarks came a day after the mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, announced it would be the first large city in Spain to ban the use of the full-face Islamic veil in public buildings.
Two other towns in the northeastern region of Catalonia, Lerida and El Venrell, have recently imposed bans on the use of the Islamic veil in public buildings. Two more, Tarragona and Gerona, are considering similar measures, as is Coin in the southern region of Andalucia.
Norwegian judges and other court officials are to be allowed to wear religious dress including the Muslim headscarf or hijab during court sessions, the board of the National Courts Administration said Monday.
However, if a party in a case has objections to the use of such attire – which also includes the Sami national costume – the person wearing such clothing could be recused – in other words excused from the case – the board said.
The National Courts Administration had initially proposed that all religious attire be banned in court rooms but revised its proposal after hearing opinions from various agencies.
Current guidelines for judges stipulate that “a judge has to act in such a manner that there can be no reason to question the judge’s impartiality.”
The discussion about the attire in court rooms was linked to a similar debate within the Norwegian police force. A year ago, the justice minister dropped plans to allow women police officers to wear the hijab as part of their uniform. The Norwegian Police Federation said it opposed any form of religious headwear, saying the police force had to be viewed as neutral.
Barcelona is to become the first major Spanish city to bar the use of face-covering Islamic veils in municipal buildings.
City Mayor Jordi Hereu announced the measure Monday but insisted it was not specifically religious. He says it is aimed at all dress that impedes identification, and thus includes motorcycle helmets and ski masks.
Lleida, also in the Spanish region of Catalonia, last month became the first Spanish city to regulate use of body-covering burqas or face-covering niqab garments.
Barcelona town hall said the measure was largely symbolic given that it is unusual to see women wearing burqas or niqabs in the city, which has a population of 1.5 million.
Associated Press, 14 June 2010
See also Reuters, which reports that a Partido Popular councillor has complained that the ban does not go far enough: “The mayoral decree is a half-measure, because as well as forbidding the burqa and niqab in public installations, it is necessary to forbid it on the street.”
Very few Spaniards have ever seen a Muslim woman dressed in a burqa – an all-body veil – walking on local streets.There are no more than an estimated few dozen burqas in the country of 46 million residents, yet the garment has become the object of a heated debate.
Seven municipalities have announced or are considering bans on the burqa, a conservative party is taking the matter to the senate, and some Muslim leaders have vowed to take legal action to reverse the bans. “This is an entirely artificial debate, with political motives behind it,” Encarnacion Gutierrez, secretary-general of Madrid’s Islamic Culture Foundation (FUNCI), told the German Press Agency dpa.
Spain has about 1.3 million Muslims. Most of them are of Moroccan origin. It is not rare for Muslim women in Spain to wear the Islamic headscarf or hijab, which covers the hair. Yet very few of them wear the niqab, a garment covering all but the eyes, and even fewer don the burqa, which includes a semi-transparent veil hiding the eyes.
The burqa, which is worn mainly in Afghanistan, and the niqab are thought to have a pre-Islamic origin. Yet opposition to all-body veils in the West has encouraged some Muslim women to claim them as a sign of their religious identity. In the north-eastern Spanish city of Lleida, for instance, some women reportedly started wearing the niqab after the municipality became the first in Spain to ban all-body veils from public buildings in May.
El Vendrell followed Lleida’s example on Friday, and five other north-eastern municipalities are considering similar bans. Muslim leaders from 11 mosques in the region intend to defend women’s “democratic” right to wear the burqa or niqab at the Constitutional Court.
“I cover myself to feel closer to Allah,” said Zohra Nia, a 38- year-old Moroccan woman who wears the niqab. “My goal is to hide my beauty” from men other than her husband or close relatives, Nia told the daily El Pais in Tarragona, one of the municipalities which are expected to outlaw the burqa and the niqab.
Spain’s main opposition conservative People’s Party (PP) is taking the debate to the senate, which it wants to adopt a motion calling on Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s government to ban all- body veils from public places. “Most Spaniards regard the use of these garments as being discriminating, harmful and contrary to the dignity of women,” conservative senator Alicia Sanchez-Camacho said. The burqa is also a security issue, because its wearer cannot be identified, she pointed out.
Zapatero’s Socialist government has not taken a clear stance on the issue. Spain does not even have nationwide rules governing the use of the hijab, with some schools allowing pupils to wear it, while others expel girls who refuse to remove it in class.
Gutierrez says she opposes the use of the burqa, but sees bans as doing more harm than good. Debates on subjects such as the burqa could become “explosive” in Spain, which created an “anti-Muslim” Christian identity after expelling the last of its former Muslim rulers in the late 15th century, she said. It was contradictory for Spain to allow women to wear extremely scanty clothing, but to question women’s right to cover their bodies, Gutierrez said.Covering women’s bodies in a sign of chastity is not only an Islamic concept, but forms part of Christianity and other traditions as well, she pointed out.
A self-proclaimed “right-wing extremist” has been given a football banning order for making Nazi salutes and shouting a torrent of racist abuse at Muslim cub scouts after a Bristol Rovers match. A court heard Martyn Howlett was walking down Muller Road in Horfield after watching Rovers play Norwich City with his family and friends when he made his shocking outburst.
Bristol Magistrates’ Court was told that the 43-year-old gestured at a British National Party badge he was wearing as he abused a group of Asian children having a picnic outside the 1st Bristol Muslim Scout group’s headquarters. Waving his arms in a Nazi salute and pointing to his badge, he shouted: “It’s BNP, racist, fascism and Hitler”, before launching into a foul-mouthed tirade in front of the frightened children. The court heard he then directed abuse at a young girl wearing a head scarf.
Prosecuting, Michael Hartnell said: “He was making hand gestures towards the children, and said they were out to blow something up. The children were scared and extremely concerned for their safety.” When asked what was wrong by Scout leader Sohail Javaid, Howlett repeatedly said: “This is our country, get out.” After police arrived, he said: “What is wrong with doing this? I am a right-wing extremist and I hate blacks.”
Magistrates gave Howlett a three-year football ban, which prohibits him from entering an area 750m around the Memorial Stadium on Rovers match days for three hours before kick-off and two hours afterwards. He is also banned from going to any football match in England or Wales, must surrender his passport to police before England away games, and not to travel to any towns or cities where Bristol Rovers or England are playing.