Amara Bamba examines the background to the current campaign in France against the veil and draws attention to an online petition against a ban.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Canada: government drops plans to ban veiled voting
The federal government has no plans to move forward with proposed legislation to force veiled women to show their faces when voting, the minister of state for democratic reform said Thursday.
Dmitri Soudas, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, confirmed the government still supports the idea of forcing voters to reveal their faces, but said the bill doesn’t have opposition support. “The bottom line is even if we were to proceed with legislation, it would be voted down immediately,” Soudas said.
The government introduced the bill in October 2007, a month after an Elections Canada ruling allowed Muslim women to vote with their faces covered by burkas or niqabs during three Quebec byelections. That decision infuriated the government, and Harper accused Elections Canada of subverting the will of Parliament, which several months earlier had unanimously adopted legislation beefing up voter identification requirements.
MCB misrepresented
Letter in the Jewish Chronicle, 26 June 2009:
Your article reporting a claim that the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslims “snubbed” a briefing of a multi-faith initiative designed to formulate a co-ordinated response to the BNP (Muslims snub drive against BNP, JC June 19) is incorrect and misleading.
No formal invitation was received from Fiyaz Mughal or his company, Faith Matters. If it had been, the MCB would have considered it.
It is extraordinary that the MCB has been wrongly characterised in this light, given the work we have done to challenge the common threat we face from the far right.
We have worked with anti-fascist groups and we ourselves launched a campaign in British mosques to raise awareness of the need to fight fascism.
Moreover, we have long been advocating a co-ordinated strategy of all faiths. In fact, days before the June 4 European and local elections, the MCB invited faith leaders, including the newly elected President of the Board of Deputies, Vivian Wineman, to be part of a joint statement that called for unity of all faith communities in condemning all those who seek to divide our society.
May I assure your readers that the Muslim Council of Britain and British Muslims are ever ready to work with British Jews, our cousins in faith, to seek the common good, and foster greater understanding between our two communities.
We can start by tackling the weekly drip-feed of misrepresentation and suspicion of Muslims and the MCB that is presented in your paper.
Murtaza Shibli,
Public Affairs and Media Officer,
Muslim Council of Britain
PO Box 57330, London E1
West must respect the Muslim veil
“Modernity should not be defined solely from a Western, liberal, secular-centred point of view. Our world today is one of multiple modernities, in which societies are increasingly multicultural and religiously and non-religiously pluralistic. Western societies should respect the rights of Muslim women who choose to wear the veil.”
John Esposito in the Gulf Times, 25 June 2009
Muslim Pc’s boss ‘accused him of looking like Osama Bin Laden’
A Muslim police officer was told he looked like the terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden by his boss because of his long beard, an employment tribunal has heard. Pc Tariq Dost has taken West Midlands Police and the police authority to a tribunal for racial and religious discrimination and victimisation following the remarks made to him from 2007.
Pc Dost, from Small Heath, Birmingham was working as a recruitment officer for the force when his manager Darren Yates is alleged to have made several discriminatory comments to him based on his race, beliefs and religion. The tribunal heard how Mr Yates made remarks about the length of his beard on several occasions and also questioned why he tucked his trousers into his boots.
Giving evidence, Pc Dost said: “I believe he felt uncomfortable with me because of my appearance. I found them (his comments) to be discriminatory and ignorant and embarrassing.” Pc Dost, 42, also claimed Mr Yates referred to Muslim prayer as “shouting and wailing” when he asked to go to afternoon prayer while at a recruitment fair at Birmingham’s NEC.
Mr Yates is alleged to have laughed at him as he turned up to the fair in Islamic clothing and robes as he was off duty. “I found it to be highly offensive and demeaning and discriminatory towards myself and Muslims as a whole,” Pc Dost said. “His actions were racist and Islamaphobic.”
Update: See “Muslim policeman awarded damages from West Midlands force”, Birmingham Post, 26 June 2009
Express links veil to terrorism, calls for ban
It is a city that has found itself at the heart of the debate about Muslim extremism after providing a home to three suicide bombers who brought devastation to London in the July 7 2005 attacks. And in Leeds yesterday the number of women clad head-to-foot in burkhas provoked anger among growing numbers who believe they should be banned.
Groups of Muslim women dressed in the restrictive robes refused to comment on their personal reasons for wearing the garment which continues to cause controversy. And even though they were walking along a busy street among shoppers and workers, most refused to be seen engaging with a non-Muslim man in public.
Leeds has a fast-growing Muslim population of at least 40,000 – double the number of 10 years ago. Locals say that since the 7/7 attacks in July 2005 – three of the gang hailed from Leeds – there has also been a increase in the number of Islamic women choosing to wear the burkha, much to the anger of many of the city’s inhabitants.
German-born au-pair Chantal Manzal, 23, has been living in Leeds for a year but returns home next month. She said yesterday: “I cannot believe what I have seen in Britain. In Germany the burkha is hardly ever seen but here I see women wearing them whenever I go out. I find them really scary.”
Hairdresser Sarah-Jane Martin, 21, said: “There is no doubt these terrible things should be banned immediately. It is a sign of oppression against women and on those grounds alone, in this day and age, they should be outlawed.”
Businesswoman Marcia Booth, 37, said: “There is no more prominent sign of female oppression by men than the burkha. I find it so demeaning and whenever I see these women hiding themselves away my blood reaches boiling point and I just want to scream at them.”
See also ENGAGE, 24 June 2009
‘Take off burkas’ call by Lib Dem MEP
A North West Euro MP has reignited a debate about Muslim women wearing the burka.
Liberal Democrat Chris Davies says the burka “does not belong in 21st century Britain” and is calling on Muslim women in Lancashire to take them off. He made the remarks after President Sarkozy of France this week attacked the burka as an assault upon the dignity of women. Mr Davies said:
“There is no mention in the Qur’an of the burka and it is a style of dress used principally in those countries where women are treated as mere chattels of men. I believe that it does not belong in 21st century Britain.
“I have a passionate belief that women and men are equals, and both sexes should be free to express their identity through the dress they wear. In my experience, the burka acts as a mask, reducing identity and discouraging women from developing their own skills and personality. If there are men who want to use the burka to impose their own will upon women in their family they should feel the full force of society’s disapproval.”
Salim Mulla, vice-chairman of Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: “It is absolute nonsense to say men force their partners, wives or daughters to wear the burkas. He probably needs to talk to people like myself and the Council of Mosques to educate himself about the issue. It is up to individuals if they want to wear the burka.”
Burnley-born Communities Minister Shahid Malik said: “It is not the job of government to dictate what people should or should not wear in our society – that is a matter of personal choice.
”This freedom to choose is one of the great values of our nation and why we are revered around the world. There are no laws stating what clothes or attire are acceptable and so whether one chooses to wear a veil or burka, a mini-skirt or goth outfit is entirely at the individual’s discretion.
”It is true that many Muslims feel the veil and its rationale are misunderstood and so sensible discussion provides an opportunity to create a better understanding and ultimately ensures we are more at ease with the diverse society within which we live.”
Lancashire Telegraph, 24 June 2009
See also Asian Image, 24 June 2009
MCB statement on Sarkozy’s support for veil ban
Sarkozy Defies Universal Values as he tells Women What Not to Wear: French leader’s Burqa remarks are designed to whip-up further xenophobia against Muslims
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) criticised French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s intention to ban the wearing of Burqa – a garment worn by a minority of Muslim women in accordance with their religious belief. Reiterating its long established position that individuals must have the freedom to choose their attire on the basis of deeply-held religious beliefs, the MCB called upon the French President to desist from engaging in and promoting divisive politics towards its Muslim inhabitants. In this respect, the MCB echoes the US President Barack Obama’s caution that “it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.”
Assistant Secretary General of the MCB, Dr. Reefat Drabu said: “It is patronising and offensive to suggest that those Muslim women who wear the burqa do so because of pressure or oppression by their male partners or guardians”. She added: “Such suggestions can legitimately be perceived as antagonistic towards Islam. Instead of taking a lead in promoting harmony and social cohesion amongst its people, the French President appears to be initiating a policy which is set to create fear and misunderstanding and may lead to Islamophobic reaction not just in France but in the rest of Europe too”.
MCB press release, 23 June 2009
Update: See also the Daily Telegraph, 24 June 2009
Protect our mosques from the far right
Recent attacks on British mosques show that our freedom of worship is under threat from extremists, argues Inayat Bunglawala.
Police and media accused of double standards over anti-Muslim violence
A Scottish man who describes himself as a “proud racist” has admitted threatening to bomb Glasgow Central Mosque and engage in targeted killings of Muslims. Neil MacGregor has been convicted of a breach of the peace but there has been surprise in some quarters that he was not charged with terrorist offences. Critics have also said that the case would have attracted considerably more media interest if the man’s motivation had been Islamic rather than anti-Islamic.
In an email to Strathclyde police, MacGregor demanded the closure of all mosques in Scotland, threatening to kidnap and behead one Muslim each week if this demand were not met. He later called police to say that he had planted a nail bomb in Glasgow Central Mosque but police found nothing suspicious after evacuating 100 worshippers. MacGregor pleaded guilty and has been remanded in custody but sentencing was deferred yesterday by Glasgow Sherriff Court.
Comparisons have been made with the case of the Islamic militant Mohammed Atif Siddique, who was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in 2007 for collecting and circulating terrorist material. Siddique’s lawyer Aamer Anwar, suggested this week that the authorities would bring terrorism charges against Muslims but not against white racists.
However, a spokesperson for the Crown Office insisted that “The facts of the case made it clear that this was a hoax bomb threat which was racially aggravated. There was no evidence of terrorist motivation or intention.”
Osama Saeed of the Scottish Islamic Foundation responded by saying “It’s all too easy to dismiss MacGregor as a fantasist and lunatic – many of the Muslims convicted of terror offences could be similarly described.”
Saeed, who is also the Scottish National Party’s prospective Parliamentary candidate for Glasgow Central, criticised the lack of media coverage. “Imagine if a Scottish Muslim pleaded guilty to threatening to blow up Glasgow Cathedral and behead one Christian a week until all British troops were pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “It would be splashed over every newspaper in the land.”
But the story has spread quickly in online discussions, not only amongst Muslims. “I just feel angry that a chance to convince the Muslim community that there is no bias against them has fallen flat on its face” wrote the Christian blogger Graham Martin yesterday. “This whole situation might actually be used to justify further violence.”