Category Archives: Hijab

Muslim lawyer ordered not to wear headscarf at Spanish court

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Spanish female lawyer has filed a complaint against a judge who ordered her to leave the courtroom because she was wearing the Muslim headscarf, press reports said Wednesday.

Moroccan-born Zoubida Barik Edidi, 39, was assisting a colleague at a trial related to Islamist terrorism at the National Court on October 29, when judge Javier Gomez Bermudez told her she could not stay in the room because of the headscarf she was wearing with her gown. Barik replied she had been to other trials with her scarf on. “I am the one who gives orders here,” Gomez Bermudez answered.

Barik has filed a complaint at the judges’ organ CGPJ, accusing Gomez Bermudez of discrimination and abuse of power, and arguing that Spanish law did not prohibit lawyers from covering their heads.

Earth Times, 11 November 2009

Woman banned from college for wearing veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim student has been banned from enrolling at a college because she refused to remove her burkha [sic – they presumably mean niqab]. Shawana Bilqes, 18, wanted to wear the garment – which covers her body and face, leaving only her eyes visible – during lessons. But staff at Burnley College refused to enrol her, claiming the burkha was a barrier to “safety and communication”. In a strongly worded statement, the college said “unimpeded” face to face contact between teachers and students was vital.

Miss Bilqes, who wanted to study an access course for a diploma, has now been forced to abandon her plans and is looking elsewhere to complete her studies.

Yesterday she said: “It is my choice to wear the veil. I live around the corner from the college in an area where there are so many practising Muslims. I tried to compromise but they wouldn’t. The college sent me a letter to say I could continue with my course if I stopped wearing the veil. We are in the 21st century and we get people from all walks of life. I’m in the police cadets as well and yet it’s not a problem wearing the veil there.”

Daily Mail, 24 October 2009

See also Burnley Express, 21 October 2009

Muslim women wearing headscarves subjected to daily abuse in Malmö

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shoving, spitting, and ethnic slurs are a daily fact of life facing women bearing headscarves in Malmö, according to a new report.

The study, entitled Hemma och främmande i staden – kvinnor med slöja berättar (“At home and estranged in the city: tales of women with headscarves”) and published by the University of Malmö, examines the lives of 19 Malmö women who choose to wear headscarves.

The report is a compilation of stories detailing harassment and offensive remarks, such as a female cyclist in her fifties who slowed down and screamed “Muslim cunt” before pedaling off.

But the tales also relate how veiled women often try to avoid confrontation. They women included in the study remain stoic in the face of critical stares, avoid certain parts of the city, try to be overly friendly, or strike up conversations in which they attempt to explain the significance of their headscarves.

“Some see it as a sort of learning process. Almost like ‘if I tell you how it works then you don’t need to be afraid of me’,” said Carina Listerborn, a researcher with the Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, told the TT news agency.

The report is part of a larger project about urban violence being carried out in cooperation with Lund and Stockholm universities.

Listerborn said that the stories of the veiled women can help broaden the definition of violence, and that it doesn’t have to be restricted to fighting, kicking, and stabbings on city streets and public squares.

“There are other kinds of violence which also deserve to be highlighted,” she said.

The Local, 21 October 2009

Download the study here.

‘Jack Straw started all this’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Three years ago this month Jack Straw argued his case for urging Muslim women who attend his MP’s surgery to remove their niqab. He said that he wanted to start a debate. In this, at least, he was successful.

“The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy said ‘the veil is an invitation to rape’; the Daily Mail columnist Allison Pearson said women who wear ‘nose bags on their faces … have no place on British streets’; the then shadow home secretary David Davis argued that Muslims were encouraging voluntary apartheid.

“And 16-year-old Daniel Coine insisted he felt threatened: ‘I’d go further than Jack Straw and say they should all take off their veils. You need to see people face to face. It’s weird not knowing who it is you’re passing in the street, specially late at night when someone might jump you.’

“And so Muslim women passed, in the public imagination, from being actually among the group most likely to be racially attacked to ostensibly being a primary cause of social strife – roaming the land in search of white teenagers to physically harass.”

Gary Younge in the Guardian, 22 October 2009

Danish Conservative Party drops proposal to ban veil … for now

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A controversial proposal fielded by the governing Danish Conservative Party to ban the Muslim burka and niqab in the public space has been dropped after Justice Ministry officials have studied the idea.

“The Justice Ministry officials have said that in their view, the proposal raises important issues in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Constitution,” says Justice Minister Brian Mikkelsen (Cons). “It’s obvious that neither I, nor a party such as the Conservative People’s Party, can support a proposal that raises that sort of legal issue.”

Controversy arose on the issue after the Conservative Party’s new integration spokesman announced in August that the party, which is the junior minority coalition party, wanted to introduce a total ban on Muslim burkas or niqabs in the public space. “We don’t want to see burkas in Denmark. We simply can’t accept that some of our citizens walk around with their faces covered,” MP Naser Khader (Cons) said at the time.

Justice Minister Brian Mikkelsen says that instead, he looks forward to a report from a working group that the government has set up to look into how the use of the burka can be stemmed by other means. “The burka represents an oppressive view of women and humanity which the government does not feel has a place in Denmark. So the government has set up a fast-working burka group to study the issue and I am looking forward to its findings,” says Mikkelsen.

Politiken, 17 September 2009

Abercrombie & Fitch sued over discrimination against hijab-wearing US Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abercrombie__FitchA popular national chain of clothing stores is being sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly not hiring a Muslim Tulsa teenager because she wears a hijab, a religiously mandated head scarf.

The EEOC filed the lawsuit Wednesday against Abercrombie & Fitch in U.S. District Court in Tulsa, citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, modified in 1991, as the basis for the action.

The suit says that Samantha Elauf, 17, applied in June 2008 for a sales job at the Abercrombie Kids store in Woodland Hills Mall. A district manager allegedly told her that the hijab, which Elauf wears in observance of her religious beliefs, did not fit the store’s image.

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Wilders: fine women for wearing headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A controversial Dutch lawmaker has urged the country’s parliament to pass a law to fine women who wear Islamic head coverings.

Geert Wilders said women observing the Islamic dress code or Hjiab should be fined 1,000 euros (1,461 dollars) per year. The leader of the liberal-right Freedom Party PVV made his remarks during a parliamentary debate about the government’s budget plans on Wednesday.

“Everyone who wants to wear a headscarf, should first apply for a headscarf license,” DPA quoted Wilders as saying. He added the fine, which he called a “head rags tax,” was meant to “demotivate” people to wear Muslim attire.

Press TV, 17 September 2009

French immigration minister calls for ban on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Eric BessonFrance’s hardline immigration minister has launched a fresh demand to ban the burkha – decribed by president Nicolas Sarkozy a sign of “subservience and debasement”. Eric Besson said the Islamic full head and body covers were “unacceptable” and not welcome in France.

His demand for a total ban comes after 58 French MPs called last June for a public inquiry on whether it should be illegal for women to hide their faces in public. Mr Sazkozy backed the move, saying at the time: “This garment makes women prisoners and deprives them of their identity. I say solemnly that they are not welcome on the territory of the French Republic.” Women’s rights groups and Left-wing MPs went even further, describing the item as a “walking coffin” and and a “mobile prison”.

Earlier this year Mr Besson said he though a law banning burkhas and niqabs would only “create tensions”. But he has now said he wants Islamic garments which cover the face – worn by an estimated 2,000 women in France – outlawed everywhere. He said yesterday: “I recognise that my views have now evolved. The burkha is unacceptable and contrary to the principles of national identity, of sexual equality and of the French Republic.”

Left-wing MP Andre Gerin, who is heading the government commission on burkhas and niqabs, added: “We find it intolerable to see images of these imprisoned women when they come from Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. They are totally unacceptable on the territory of the French Republic.”

Daily Mail, 14 September 2009

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