Category Archives: Hijab

UKIP chief Nigel Farage calls for burka ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The burka and other face-covering veils worn by Muslim women should be banned, the UK Independence Party says.

Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who leads UKIP’s 13 MEPs in Brussels, told the BBC’s Politics Show they were a symbol of an “increasingly divided Britain”. He also said they “oppressed” women and were a potential security threat. But Schools Secretary Ed Balls said it was “not British” to tell people what to wear in the street, and accused UKIP of indulging in “unpleasant politics”.

UKIP is the first British party to call for a total ban, after the BNP called for it to be banned in Britain’s schools.

Mr Farage said: “I can’t go into a bank with a motorcycle helmet on. I can’t wear a balaclava going round the District and Circle line. What we are saying is, this is a symbol. It’s a symbol of something that is used to oppress women. It is a symbol of an increasingly divided Britain.

“And the real worry – and it isn’t just about what people wear – the real worry is that we are heading towards a situation where many of our cities are ghettoised and there is even talk about Sharia law becoming part of British culture.”

A “different” culture was “being forced on parts of Britain and nobody wants that”, added Mr Farage, but he denied the policy was an attempt to grab votes from the BNP, insisting it had “nothing to do with the BNP”. “There is nothing extreme or radical or ridiculous about this, but we can’t go on living in a divided society,” he told The Politics Show.

BBC News, 17 January 2010

See also UKIP news report, 17 January 2010

UKIP calls for ban on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lord Pearson and WildersThe UK Independence Party is to call for a ban on the burka and the niqab – the Islamic cloak that covers women from head to toe and the mask that conceals most of the face – claiming they affront British values.

The policy, which a number of European countries are also debating, is an attempt by UKIP to broaden its appeal and address the concerns of disaffected white working-class voters.

UKIP would be the first national party to call for a total ban on burkas, though the far-Right BNP believes they should be banned from schools.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the leader of UKIP, said yesterday: “We are taking expert advice on how we could do it. It makes sense to ban the burka – or anything which conceals a woman’s face – in public buildings. But we want to make it possible to ban them in private buildings. It isn’t right that you can’t see someone’s face in an airport.”

Nigel Farage, the former UKIP party leader, will announce tomorrow that the party believes the fabric of the country is under threat from Sharia and that forcing women to conceal their identity in public is not consistent with traditional Britishness.

UKIP believes that the burka and the niqab have no basis in Islam, are a threat to gender equality, marginalise women and endanger the public safety because terrorists could use them to hide their identity.

Times, 16 January 2010

See also the Times editorial, “Veil of ignorance”, which condemns UKIP’s proposal as “deeply cynical and wrong”:

“They claim that the burka marginalises women. This is a new concern for UKIP. It is, after all, the party of Godfrey Bloom, the MEP who says that ‘any small businessman or woman who employs a woman of child-bearing age needs their head examined’. Perhaps Mr Bloom, who thinks that women do not clean behind the fridge enough, worries that their burkas are getting in the way.

“UKIP argues further that the burka has no place in Islam and that the religion does not require it. The Times had not hitherto realised that Nigel Farage was an authority on such matters, or that the party leader Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who was visited by God when on the operating table in 1977, thereby gained not only his Christian faith but also a mastery of the Koran. This newly acquired scholarship notwithstanding, the religious insights of politicians are entirely irrelevant when judging the right of British citizens to dress as they wish.”

Update:  The fascists aren’t happy. See “Phony UKIP steals BNP burka policy”, BNP news report, 17 January 2010

Muslim-American subjected to religious profiling at airport

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nadia Hassan is a frequent flier. Imagine her surprise when she arrived at the security checkpoint at Washington’s Dulles International Airport Tuesday and encountered what she calls, “racial, religious profiling.”

The 40-year-old Michigan-born Muslim-American, headed to Los Angeles, says she was singled out for what she calls a “humiliating” full-body search. When she asked why this was happening “the gentleman who was working there specifically told me that the reason I’m being put through this type of search is because I’m wearing a head scarf…. He actually came out and told me that that’s the reason why you are being targeted.”

She’s not alone. On Monday, a Muslim-Canadian woman says she was made to feel like a terrorist because she was wearing a headscarf. She says she was berated and banned from boarding a flight to the United States – all because of her faith.

The Council on American Islamic Relations calls these textbook cases of profiling. “It’s violating the law. It’s unconstitutional and un-American to single people out because of their religion. It’s a knee-jerk measure that’s going to cause panic and fear,” says the council’s national executive director, Nihad Awad.

CNN, 8 January 2010

France moves to outlaw the veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The parliamentary leader of the ruling French party is to put forward a draft law within two weeks to ban the full-body veil from French streets and all other public places.

The announcement by Jean-François Copé, cutting short an anguished six-month debate on the burka and its Arab equivalent, the niqab, will divide both right and left and is likely to anger President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mr Copé, in an interview with Le Figaro to be published tomorrow, said that he would bring forward a law which would impose fines of up to €750 (£675) on anyone appearing in public “with their face entirely masked”.

Independent, 8 January 2010

See also the Daily Star which reports, under the headline “Women to be fined for wearing Burkas”, that “Strict new laws are being considered in France to tackle Islamic extremism. And campaigners want the same tough penalties in the UK.” Who exactly are these campaigners, you may ask. Well, the Star has found two.

One is right-wing Christian extremist Stephen Green who tells the Star: “We ought to assert our Christian heritage as strongly as France does its secular heritage. There’s no doubt the burka is culturally divisive. Measures like fines would send out a great signal. If we don’t take action against Islam now we are going to see terrible problems in this country in 30 years’ time.”

Bizarrely, the Star informs its readers that “many leading Muslim groups believe the burka should be outlawed in Britain”. But the only example they offer is Diana Nammi of the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, not hitherto known as a leading Muslim group, who is quoted as saying: “We support bans anywhere in the world.”

Looks like Damian Thompson’s proposal for an alliance between secularists and right-wing Christians on the basis of a common hatred of Islam is already being implemented.

Massachusetts college bans veil – Daniel Pipes welcomes ‘preventative step’ against terrorism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MCPHS logoA Massachusetts pharmacy college instituted a ban on clothing that obscures the face, including face veils and burqas, weeks after a Muslim alumnus who is also the son of a professor was charged with plotting terror strikes.

The policy change at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services, announced in a campus-wide e-mail last month, went into effect Friday.

Michael Ratty, a college spokesman, said the policy was developed in the fall during the school’s annual review of its public safety procedures and was unrelated to the arrest of 2008 graduate Tarek Mehanna.

Mehanna, of Sudbury, was arrested Oct. 21. He is accused of conspiring with two men to randomly shoot mall shoppers and kill U.S. public officials and soldiers in Iraq. Mehanna’s family has denied the charges and Mehanna has drawn strong, public support from friends and students he taught at a Muslim school in Worcester. Mehanna’s father, Ahmed Mehanna, teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy’s campus in Boston.

The school’s revised ”identification policy” reads that for ”reasons of safety and security, all students must be readily identifiable while they are on campus and/or engaged in required off-campus activities. … Therefore, any head covering that obscures a student’s face may not be worn, either on campus or at clinical sites, except when required for medical reasons.”

The policy would effectively ban face veils, as well as burqas and niqabs, which either cloak the entire body or cover everything but the eyes. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said he has contacted school officials about providing a religious exemption, and said it’s required because the policy makes a medical exemption.

He said the revision was aimed at two female Muslim students who wear face veils due to their religious beliefs. Hooper said a minority of Muslims believe that covering the face is required, but that stopping them from practicing their faith is “un-American”.

Hooper said strong security can be maintained at a college without sacrificing religious freedom. “If you can get on an airplane wearing a face veil, you can go to class at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy wearing a face veil,” he said.

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum and a frequent critic of militant Islam, applauded the college for the policy change, noting numerous terrorist attacks have been committed by people hiding themselves and their weapons under veils.

“I think the college was alerted to the dangers that could come from its student body by the arrest of Tarek Mehanna … and realized that it needs to take preventative steps to protect itself, its student body, its staff,” he said.

Associated Press, 5 January 2010

Update:  See “Massachusetts college alters policy banning face coverings”, CNN, 8 January 2010

Muslim woman searched by US airport security because she wore a headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to clarify whether Islamic head scarves, or hijab, will now automatically trigger additional security measures for Muslim travelers.

CAIR made that request after a Muslim woman traveler taking a flight Tuesday from Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Los Angeles (LAX) reported that TSA personnel first requested that she take off her hijab, then put her through a “humiliating” public full-body pat-down search when she refused. After the pat-down, the Muslim traveler’s luggage, coat, shoes, laptop, and cell phone were searched and tested for bomb-making chemicals.

When the traveler, a resident of Maryland, questioned TSA staff about the way she was being treated, she was allegedly told that a new policy went into effect that morning mandating that “anyone wearing a head scarf must go through this type of search.”

CAIR press release, 6 January 2010

See also Dawud Walid, “Religious profiling won’t help anti-terror security”, Detroit News, 6 January 2010

Update:  See also “Muslim woman treated like ‘terrorist’ at U.S. customs”, CTV News, 6 January 2010

And “Another hijab-wearing Muslim traveler reports mistreatment”,CAIR press release, 7 January 2010

Atlanta police sued over hijab dispute

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim woman is claiming in a federal lawsuit that she was dismissed from the Atlanta Police Department’s civilian honor guard because she refused to remove her traditional headscarf.

Helen Lane says in a federal lawsuit filed this week that the head of the voluntary guard laughed at her when she told him she would wear her hijab at a September 2006 funeral. She said she felt “humiliated, hurt and was traumatized” by the laughter. Lane, who is seeking $250,000 in damages, said she was told by another Atlanta official that “the hijab was like a swastika.”

The city has denied the allegations and the honor guard has since been disbanded.

Associated Press, 28 December 2009

French minister wants to deny citizenship to Muslim women wearing veils

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Eric BessonFrance’s immigration minister said Wednesday that he wants the wearing of Muslim veils that cover the face and body to be grounds for denying citizenship and long-term residence.

Eric Besson said he planned to take “concrete measures” regarding such veils, which are worn by a small minority of women in France but have become the object of a parliamentary inquiry into whether a ban should be imposed. Besson spoke during a hearing before the panel of lawmakers as their nearly six-month inquiry draws to a close.

Besson said he believed a formal ban on veils that cover the face and body seemed to him “unavoidable,” with a ban in public services as a minimum step. Whether such veils are banned or not, he said he intends to personally move forward to ensure that women wearing such veils and seeking French nationality or residence cards are denied.

“I want the wearing of the full veil to be systematically considered as proof of insufficient integration into French society, creating an obstacle to gaining (French) nationality,” he said. He said he would advise prefects, the highest state representative in the various French regions, that the wearing of such veils is a motive for not delivering 10-year residence cards.

Besson said he was prepared to put the measures before parliament to make them law. In November, Besson ordered a nationwide debate on the French identity, to conclude by the end of January with possible measures.

Associated Press, 16 December 2009

France to ban full face veil, says ruling party chief

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jean-Francois CopeFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, the UMP, says it will push for a law banning the full-face Islamic veil, according to its parliamentary leader Jean-François Copé.

“The issue is not how many women wear the burqa,” Copé wrote in an article in the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro. “There are principles at stake: extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country.”

RFI, 16 December 2009