A woman wearing a hijab was hit above the eye by an egg thrown from a passing car in what police in Surrey described as a racially-aggravated assault. It happened as she walked past the Children’s Centre, in Church Road, Frimley, at about 2100 GMT on 22 March.
She told police that a light blue Peugeot 206 drove past her and tooted, but when she turned round one of several young men inside threw the egg. She suffered a small bump above her eye but did not require medical treatment.
So Kate Melville claims, in a letter to the Guardian.
Update: See Yusuf Smith’s comments at Indigo Jo Blogs.
Update 2: And Councillor Rania Khan’s response here.
A mother was told she could not attend a school parents evening because she was wearing a veil. The 34-year-old woman who does not wish to be named claims she has taken the issue up with the school but she has been told she must remove her veil whenever she enters the school on “health, safety and security grounds”.
Speaking exclusively to Asian Image she said, “If I had been told this was their intended policy then maybe I would not have considered asking my son to go to the school in the first place. The whole situation has upset me and I don’t like going to the school any more because I always leave crying.”
The woman, who is also a former pupil of the school, said the policy was not in force before she enrolled her son at the school, neither was it in the school prospectus. She said the problem started in 2007 at Our Lady and St John Roman Catholic School in Blackburn. Since then the woman said she has been asked to remove her veil before she can step into the school.
Headteacher Mrs Gillen said, “Although a high percentage of our pupils are of Asian Heritage pupils she was the first lady to come to parents evening wearing a full veil. I have made it quite clear that I will arrange for her to meet with staff on a one to one in my office. The difficulty would be if a number of ladies wearing veils were free to wander corridors or rooms. It would not be feasible to monitor who is who.”
See also Lancashire Evening Telegraph and Daily Mail.
Bus company Arriva said that it was a case of confusion and not racism that led a bus driver to refuse travel to a woman wearing a headscarf.
A Muslim family was shocked when a local bus driver refused to continue driving unless the mother, who was wearing a traditional headscarf, got off the bus.
Århus Stiftstidende newspaper reported that Houria Nouioua, together with her husband and three young children, was told by the young male bus driver that she couldn’t travel on the bus because she was wearing a niqab – a traditional Muslim veil that covers the face.
“The driver said that the rules in Denmark meant he couldn’t carry passengers that were masked,” said the woman’s husband, Mohamed Belgacem. “I was so shocked that she couldn’t travel on the bus. I’ve lived in Denmark for 12 years and have never experienced anything like this.”
The Arriva bus remained at the bus stop for 15 minutes while other passengers became involved in the incident, outraged at the behaviour of the bus driver. “It’s pure racism and discrimination,” said a female passenger who rang the Arriva head office and spoke to an official who instructed the driver to accept the Muslim passenger.
Martin Wex, press manager with Arriva said the driver will not be fired as it was not a case of racism but one of confusion. “The driver said he had heard that masks were forbidden during demonstrations in Denmark and thought that it also applied to buses,” said Wex, who confirmed that in the next issue of the employee magazine rules will be made clear to all personnel.
Muslim students have held demonstrations in Paris on the fifth anniversary of the banning of the Muslim headscarf in French schools.
The protesters, mostly Muslim girls with hijab, described the “French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools” as racial discrimination saying people should be free to choose their dress code.
The law, which is an amendment to the French Code of Education separating state and religious activities, bans students from wearing religious symbols in schools. France’s national legislature passed the controversial bill and President Jacques Chirac signed it into law on March 15, 2004 and it came into effect on September 2, 2004, at the beginning of the new school year.
Many say the bill contradicts court decisions that had allowed students to wear religious signs, as long as they did not amount to “proselytizing”. Although the law does not mention any particular symbol, it is widely believed that it targets Muslims’ headscarves.
Throughout Europe, over the past decade, there has been a loud – and at times openly xenophobic – debate about whether a Muslim woman should be allowed to wear a headscarf while on duty in a government job. Various types of bans have been enacted in several countries, including France, Germany, and Turkey.
Some feminists seek these bans in the name of helping Muslim women, whom they often see as uniformly oppressed. Anti-immigration politicians seek these policies because they see people who refuse to “fit in” as a threat to western society. But these arguments are detrimental both to women’s rights and to peaceful integration, and the women most likely to be affected are rarely consulted.
“I suddenly felt like a stranger in Germany,” one elementary school teacher said, describing her reaction to a ban in her state. “I will never forget that.”
She was one of many people interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Germany, where 8 of 16 federal states have these bans for teachers (in two states the ban also covers other civil servants). Some of these laws are openly discriminatory, banning religious symbols, but excluding symbols of “Christian heritage.” Other German bans appear to be neutral, but almost exclusively affect Muslim women.
Gauri van Gulik at Comment is Free, 14 March 2009
A Muslim woman was asked to leave her place in line at a credit union in Southern Maryland and be served in a back room because the head scarf she wore for religious reasons violated the institution’s “no hats, hoods or sunglasses” policy, the woman said yesterday.
The incident at the Navy Federal Credit Union on Saturday was the second in a month for Kenza Shelley, and Muslim advocates fear it could become a problem nationwide as many financial institutions, intent on curbing robberies and identity theft, ban hats and similar items without appropriate accommodations for religious attire.
“This may be the tip of the iceberg,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. “There’s got to be a way to work it out so that this security concern does not lead to violations of constitutional rights.”
German state bans on religious symbols and clothing for teachers and other civil servants discriminate against Muslim women who wear the headscarf, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 67-page report, “Discrimination in the Name of Neutrality: Headscarf Bans for Teachers and Civil Servants in Germany,” is based on extensive research over an eight-month period. It analyzes the human rights implications of the bans and their effect on the lives of Muslim women teachers, including those who have been employed for many years. It says that the bans have caused some women to give up their careers or to leave Germany, where they have lived all their lives.
“These laws in Germany clearly target the headscarf, forcing women who wear it to choose between their jobs and their religious beliefs,” said Haleh Chahrokh, researcher in the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch. “They discriminate on the grounds of both gender and religion and violate these women’s human rights.”
HRW news release, 26 February 2009
Download report here.
Justice Minister Knut Storberget has decided to withdraw the proposal to permit Muslim women to wear hijab with the Norwegian police uniform. This follows increasing protests fromthe political opposition as well as from within the three government coalition parties and also the police.
Making the announcement at a press conference, Storberget said he had decided to stop the process, after his department had earlier announced that it had accepted a proposal from the Police Directorate to allow the hijab, in what they said was a move as part of a desire to secure broad recruitment to the police.
Via Islam in Europe
A Stockholm woman has reported an adult education college in Spånga to the Equality Ombudsman (DO) after being told that she could not wear an Islamic headscarf in class.
The woman was told on January 15th that she was no longer welcome at Västerort Vuxengymnasium, an adult education college in Spånga, if she persisted in wearing her. The woman has now reported the matter to the Equality Ombudsman (DO) alleging discrimination.
In her report to DO dated January 20th, the woman alleges that she was told that she could not wear her niqab in class or in contact with the school’s staff. The woman explains that the school justified its decision by referring to a recent decision by the National Agency for Education Skolverket) which banned the wearing of some Muslim headscarves in class.
“But this is just a ruling, it is not a law and the ruling concerns those who wear a burqa, covering the whole face. I have a niqab which shows the area around the eyes,” the woman argued. The woman writes that she finds it “offensive” to be expelled for her “personal style” and argues that the ruling is confusing as some schools permit the niqab.
But the college’s rector, Britt-Marie Johansson, has defended the school’s right to exclude the student from classes, referring to the education agency’s ruling. “At Västerorts vux it is not allowed in the classroom to cover one’s face, with a veil or similar. This rule also applies in contact with staff. This means that neither a niqab nor a burqa can be worn.” According to Johansson, the choice facing students is thus clear. “Accept the rules stated above or discontinue your studies.”
But the student is keen to continue her studies and claims that she has offered the school a compromise. “I have said that I can sit at the front of the class, and remove the niqab during classes and to identify myself. I have even spoken to the men in the class … and they have said that it doesn’t bother them.”
The student argues that freedom of religion is enshrined in law in Sweden and this should take precedence over the education agency ruling.