Feminists face off over the veil

“You might notice that as this conflagration spreads, more and more conservatives – many of whom do not identify as feminists – are rushing in to stoke the fire. As they do, the discussion becomes less about defending women’s rights and more about supporting their ongoing culture war. That reminds me of a line from Wolf’s essay: ‘Ideological battles are often waged with women’s bodies as their emblems, and Western Islamophobia is no exception’.”

Tracy Clark-Flory examines the debate between Naomi Wolf and Phyllis Chesler.

Salon, 5 September 2009

Muslim woman barred from New Zealand court for wearing headscarf

Yasmeen AliYasmeen Ali was attempting to enter Hastings District Court on Tuesday to support her brother Carlos Manuel Brooking, 22, who was appearing for sentencing on a charge of assault.

Ms Ali, a 25-year-old mother-of-three, was asked by a court attendant to remove her headscarf on entering the courthouse. She refused and took a seat. When she tried to re-enter court after the morning break, she was blocked. She complained to the court manager, who told her she could not enter wearing a headscarf because the judge, Geoff Rea, had forbidden it.

Her brother had earlier been put into custody after refusing to remove a hat while sitting in court awaiting his sentencing, despite being requested to do so by Judge Rea.

Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres today called for reassurance for the Muslim community. ”I can’t imagine a nun being told to remove such attire, and the same should apply to others who wear head coverings for religious reasons, such as Muslims, Sikhs and Jews,” he said.

Judicial communications adviser Neil Billington said the incident was the result of Judge Rea’s “mistaken  assumption of what was occurring in the courtroom”.

“The judge required the removal of the woman because of her association with [her brother] who had just been removed. The judge had mistakenly assumed that her headgear was a demonstration of protest at the court.”

Dominion Post, 3 September 2009

See also 3News, 3 September 2009

Belgian school terms begins amid protests over veil ban

Antwerp school protestDozens of protesters sported party hats, colanders and other unlikely headgear in protests Tuesday at schools in the Belgian city of Antwerp where authorities have banned girls from wearing the Muslim veil.

Around 60 people turned up for the start of the school year outside the gates of the Athenee Royal of Antwerp school, where most students are Muslims, carrying banners calling for “freedom of choice,” television pictures showed.

Another 70 protesters assembled at the Hoboken secondary school in suburb of Antwerp, in the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium which also introduced a ban on Muslim veils on Tuesday.

The two schools targeted for the protests were following the lead of others throughout the country as the number of schools still allowing the veil decreases each year.

“This ban is against the freedom of religion and violates the right to an education,” for young Muslims, said Samira Azabar, one of the protest organisers.

After the two schools decided on the ban in June an imam in Antwerp called on “all Muslim parents not to send their children back to school” for the new academic year.

Athenee head mistress Karin Heremans said that so far a dozen students had stayed away from school.

She justified the ban by saying girls who had refused to wear the Muslim veil had been subjected to intimidation at a school where “the proportion of Muslims has increased from 50 percent to 80 percent in the last three years.”

Agence France-Presse, 3 September 2009

US Islamophobes’ heroine lied about seeing Muslim student sit during Pledge

Heather LawrenceFervent patriots held Heather Lawrence up as a hero. When her story broke last week, bloggers and online commenters praised the 16-year-old junior and JROTC member at Springstead High School for confronting a Muslim student for not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Lawrence, however, fabricated that part of the story, school officials say. “This girl lied,” Springstead principal Susan Duval said Monday. “I have confirmed with the homeroom teacher the young (Muslim) lady stood for the pledge.”

Lawrence said she was walking by another homeroom Wednesday morning when she saw a girl with the traditional Muslim head scarf sitting during the pledge. Later, Lawrence said she confronted the girl, told her she should stand during the pledge out of respect and, according to her own account and a school report, said, “Take that thing off your head and act like you’re proud to be an American.”

A teacher witnessed the confrontation and Lawrence was suspended for five days for violating the district’s policy against bullying and harassment. The suspension has since been reduced to three days.

After the incident, Heather Lawrence was asked by a teacher why she confronted the girl. “She began to rant that she was enlisting and was going to Iraq and that basically because the girl looks Middle Eastern, that makes her an enemy because all Iraqis are Middle Eastern,” according to the referral signed by assistant principal Stephen Crognale.

The story, reported by the Times and other local media Friday, went viral, prompting some praise for Lawrence for speaking her mind and boos for school officials for quelling her free-speech rights. Duval said the school has received calls from angry people who have “abused” her staff.

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Leyton scheme to empower young Muslim women

A project aimed at helping young Muslim girls to gain confidence and skills, including those who have suffered abuse and hostility because of wearing the headscarf, has been launched.

The Young Muslim Women Professionals Project was given a grant of nearly £500,000 from the Big Lottery fund and was set up after women came forward to describe the abuse they suffered. Aimed at girls and young women aged 10 to 25, the scheme will include mentoring projects, “skills for life” such as ICT and counselling training and advice on how to deal with abuse safely.

Project director Zahir Fatima said: “We’re helping young Muslim women to build confidence regardless of whether they wear the veil. It’s about giving them skills and empowering them to become more active in the community.”

Set up by the Leyton-based Kiran Project, which has traditionally supported Asian women and children suffering domestic violence and abuse, the scheme is set to run for three years.

Fiaz Akhtar, who works for Kiran as a project co-ordinator and wears a head scarf, said: “I’ve experienced it myself on two or three occasions. After 7/7, I was in my car with my daughter and a guy came up behind me. He came out of his car and started swearing and saying ‘get back to your country’. It came to the point where I was petrified.”

Mrs Akhtar also had a lit cigarette thrown at her and said many women have been spat at, verbally abused in the street and even had their veils pulled off in the years following 9/11 and 7/7. She said: “My clothes almost caught fire – luckily I was sitting forward. I cried a lot – it’s something that could have been harmful to me.”

She described how her 12-year-old daughter, who also wears the veil, had been verbally abused in Walthamstow market because of the way she was dressed. Mrs Akhtar added that a number of young women had come forward to say they had suffered similar problems and the project grew from there, as a way to rebuild their self-confidence.”

Waltham Forest Guardian, 28 August 2009

Michigan courts given leeway to force veil removal

Michigan’s Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday allowing lower state courts to “exercise reasonable control” over the appearance of witnesses and parties, a rule change proposed after a Muslim woman refused to remove an Islamic garment in a small claims court.

The order allows courts “reasonable control over the appearance of parties and witnesses” so as to “ensure that the demeanor of such persons may be observed and assessed by the fact-finder and ensure the accurate identification of such person.”

The order, which amends a rule of the Michigan Rules of Evidence, is effective September 1.

The amendment was prompted by a 2006 small claims case in Michigan filed by Ginnah Muhammad, who wore a niqab – a garment that covers the entire face and head, except for the eyes – to court, the order said.

CNN, 26 August 2009

See also “Woman sues, claims judge forced her to remove hijab”,CNN, 26 August 2009

Swiss basketball body forbids Muslim headscarf

A Muslim woman has been told by Swiss basketball authorities she can’t wear a headscarf when she plays in league games. Sura Al-Shawk, a 19-year-old Swiss citizen of Iraqi origin, is to debut in a regional women’s league when the season starts next month. Her team, STV Luzern, sought permission for her to wear the scarf.

However, the Swiss association ProBasket said Thursday it follows the rules of FIBA, the world governing body. FIBA says the sport has to be neutral, forbidding religious symbols and headcovers. “If basketball is priority No. 1, international rules have to be respected,” ProBasket told the Swiss newspaper Neue Luzerner Zeitung. “If religion is priority No. 1, then you cannot play basketball.” It added that STV Luzern will lose its games by default if Al-Shawk plays with her headscarf.

Al-Shawk says she was surprised by the decision but has not said what she will do. “I really can’t understand what is happening here,” she told the newspaper. “I would not have thought it possible that in a country like Switzerland a headscarf in sport would pose a problem.”

Associated Press, 20 August 2009

Burkini-wearer at Verona swimming pool ‘frightens children’

Italy on Tuesday got its first close-up look at a burkini – an outfit consisting of head scarf, tunic and trousers – when a woman showed up at a Verona swimming pool wearing the outfit. Christian Panzarini, the manager of the Verona pool, said he had not asked the woman to leave despite several complaints from mothers who said she had frightened their tots.

Life in Italy, 18 August 2009

Via Islam in Europe

Burqini banned in Italian town

Lega Nord posterMuslim women have been banned from wearing the body-concealing swimming costume known as a burqini in the northern Italian town of Varallo Sesia, according to a report.

Women wearing the garment, made up of a veil, a tunic and loose leggings, face a fine of €500 (£430) if they are spotted at swimming pools or rivers, the ANSA news agency reported.

The anti-immigration mayor of the northern Piedmont town said: “The sight of a ‘masked woman’ could disturb small children, not to mention problems of hygiene. We don’t have to be tolerant all the time.”

Mr Buonanno belongs to the Northern League, a party allied with the centre-Right People of Freedom party led by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister.

Daily Telegraph, 19 August 2009

Danish Conservatives call for burqa ban

Jyllands Posten Khader“We don’t want to see burqas in Denmark. We simply can’t accept that some of our citizens walk around with their faces covered,” Naser Khader, a Danish member of parliament of Syrian-Palestinian extraction who was recently appointed spokesman for integration issues for the Conservative Party, told the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

In comments published on Sunday, Khader said the burqa is un-Danish and oppressive towards women and should be completely banned. He and his party say that what people do in their own homes is their business, but as soon as they walk into the public domain, one should be able to see their faces.

The Danish People’s Party and the Social Democratic Party have welcomed the proposal, while the Liberal Party, which is the senior partner in Denmark’s coalition government, rejects the idea of legislating about citizens’ clothing, provided they are not employed in a public function.

“It’s going too far if we start legislating on what sort of clothes people can and cannot wear. The burqa and covered faces should not be allowed if you work with people in the public sector — but that is where we draw the line,” says Liberal Party political spokesman Peter Christensen, who adds that it is important that politicians know where to draw the line in introducing policy.

Khader, however, says a ban is the only solution. “My view is that (the burqa) is not Islamic at all,” Khader says. “The modern burqa was introduced by the Taliban when the movement came to power. So I associate the burqa with the Taliban.”

The burqa ban is part of an integration initiative that the Conservatives’ parliamentary group approved on Friday, although the party has not decided what punishment should be meted out to those who break the ban.

“Initially we’re sending out a signal by saying that it should be banned. Then it’s up to the lawyers to find out what sanctions should be introduced,” Khader told the Jyllands-Posten.

Denmark is not the only European country where politicians have proposed a ban on burqas. French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently said that the burqa was “not welcome” in France, while France’s urban regeneration minister, Fadela Amara, told the Saturday edition of the Financial Times that she was in favor of the burqa “not existing in my country.” The Netherlands has also considered a ban on burqas.

Spiegel, 18 August 2009