Belgian politician risks Muslim backlash after using teenage daughter dressed in burka and bikini for campaign against Islam

A Belgian politician has risked causing uproar among Muslims after starting a “Women Against Islamization” campaign featuring his 19-year-old daughter wearing a burka and a bikini.

Filip Dewinter, leader of the far-right Vlaams Belang party, uses a shot of his daughter An-Sofie Dewinter in the dark blue bikini for the political campaign.

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Police will be obliged to enforce veil ban, says Dutch minister

Wilders with coalition leaders

Once the burqa ban passed by the Dutch conservative coalition on Friday is approved by parliament, police will be obliged to enforce it, Security and Justice Minister Yvo Opstelten stresses.

“The minister expects police to enforce the ban in accordance with the law”, Mr Opstelten’s spokesperson emphasised. The statement comes in response to criticism voiced by the National Police Union and the central works council of the national police force that is currently being set up.

The chair of the police works council, Frank Giltay, had said there is no need for a burqa ban, which, he added, is unlikely to have any practical benefits. Burqas, he underlined, do not pose a threat to public security. He criticised the ban as a “symbolic policy”.

 

Green Left leader Jolande Sap also denounced the intended ban as a symbolic policy. Speaking on radio on Saturday morning, Ms Sap argued that women’s emancipation required different measures, such as education and language courses.

She also slammed the cabinet for going to such lengths to make the burqa ban acceptable by allowing a raft of exceptions, such as wearing balaclavas in winter or donning masks and veils during carnival. “Maybe I’ll wear a burqa for carnival,” the MP joked.

The coalition of the conservative VVD and Christian Democrats had previously agreed with Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam Freedom Party, which backs the minority cabinet on an agreed package of policies, to institute the burqa ban this term.

The cabinet adopted the ban on Friday despite grave reservations expressed by the Council of State, the government’s top advisory body and the country’s highest court, regarding its legality and feasibility.

RNW, 28 January 2012

Dutch government moves step closer to banning veil

Wilders Verhagen handshake
September 2010: Verhagen and Wilders shake hands on their political deal

The Dutch Cabinet moved a step closer Friday to banning the burqa, making good on an election promise that is largely symbolic but has broad public support.

Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Verhagen said the Cabinet agreed on plans to ban the head-to-toe Islamic gown along with other forms of face-covering clothing including ski masks. The legislation must still be approved by both houses of the Dutch Parliament, a process that could take months. “We are confident we have a majority,” Interior Minister Liesbeth Spies said.

Once seen as one of the world’s most tolerant nations, the Netherlands has turned increasingly conservative in recent years and is pushing immigrants more to fully assimilate into mainstream Dutch society. Anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders welcomed the decision in a tweet as “fantastic news.”

Like neighboring Belgium, the Dutch government cited security concerns as a reason for the ban and framed it as a move to safeguard public order and allow all people to “fully participate in society”. “People must be able to look one another in the eye,” Verhagen said.

The Dutch decision came despite criticism of the ban from independent advisory panel the Council of State, which reportedly suggested it could amount to an attack on freedom of religion. Verhagen denied ignoring the advice and said ministers took it into account when laying out the reasons underpinning the legislation. The government is confident that by citing public order concerns, the legislation will not breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

Leyla Cakir, head of Muslim women’s organization Al Nisa, said she was surprised and shocked by the decision. “You are taking away women’s right of self-determination, and it is all based on fear,” she said.

But in a statement announcing the decision, the government said it was helping women. “Having to wear a burqa or niqab in public goes against equality of men and women,” the government said. “With this legislation, the Cabinet is removing a barrier to these women participating in society.”

Associated Press, 27 January 2012

See also “Ministers vote for Dutch ‘burqa ban'”, RNW, 27 January 2012

A ban on the veil was part of the deal the VVD and CDA made with Wilders in September 2010, in exchange for his party’s support for their coalition government. However, it would be unfair to accuse Maxime Verhagen of adopting this policy out of mere political expendency. He has a record of Islamophobia going back some years.

Wilders isn’t the only person celebrating this so-called advance for women’s rights. Forbes contributor Abigail R. Esman comments:

“… for the women who have ached to be free of these constraining garments, whose daily lives are at risk simply walking in the streets (it is almost impossible to navigate safely in such vestments, which severely limit your field of vision); whose husbands have forced them to live essentially as prisoners in solitary confinement, today marks a moment of liberation. Granted, this will in no way change the mindsets of Muslim extremists. Islamist women will continue their campaigns of hate no matter how they are dressed; but they will no longer be able to force those lifestyles on their daughters. It’s a start.”

Sookhdeo on the Arab Spring: dictatorships have been replaced by ‘a political ideology rooted in a religion that wants our destruction’

Family Research Council logoWASHINGTON – An expert on Islam said Thursday that the United States and other Western nations are indirectly aiding the spread of radical Islamic groups abroad.

Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, international director of U.K.-based Barnabas Fund, said at a lecture hosted by Family Research Council that the “Arab Spring” is a good example of how the United States and other nations are enabling the spread of Islamism, especially in Libya and Egypt.

In Libya, he said, the support given by NATO and the U.S. to the rebel group, known as the NTC, is a matter of concern. “We had to support the NTC, which was the rebel group,” said Sookhdeo, who added that “they were a coalition of groups that included al-Qaida.” “We have removed one dictator and replaced that dictator with a political ideology rooted in a religion that wants our destruction.”

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Boykin to be keynote speaker at West Point prayer breakfast

West PointA controversial retired Army officer who has drawn attention worldwide for speeches against Islam will be the keynote speaker at a prayer breakfast Feb 8 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin was a top Pentagon official in 2004 when he was reprimanded for saying in uniform that Muslims worship idols and not “a real God,” and for depicting the war against Muslim radicals as a Christian struggle against satan.

Since he retired, Boykin has been on the lecture circuit, speaking more candidly about his belief that the practice of Islam shouldn’t be covered by the First Amendment because it’s “a totalitarian way of life,” and that mosques should be banned.

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New York police commissioner apologises for ‘Third Jihad’ interview

Third Jihad(2)New York’s police commissioner apologized Wednesday for appearing in a documentary movie about terrorism that Muslim groups have criticized as inflammatory, and said his department acted wrongly when it later showed the film to counterterrorism trainees.

A spokesman for Raymond Kelly had previously denied the commissioner had any participation in the making of the “The Third Jihad,” suggesting last year that footage of Kelly was lifted from another source.

But on Wednesday Kelly said he had sat for an interview in 2007 because the filmmaker had “bona fides” in television and with the White House. The movie later was shown on a continuous loop on the sidelines during New York Police Department counterterrorism sessions.

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‘Strict Muslim’ raped four women at knifepoint to ‘punish them for being on the streets at night’

Thus the headline to an article in today’s Daily Mail. As is almost invariably the case when this newspaper reports on any issue involving Muslims, the headline is intentionally misleading.

If you read the article, you’ll see it is the rapist’s family background that is characterised as “strict Muslim” not the individual himself. In fact the judge in passing sentence made the point that the rapist carried out the attacks despite and in contradiction to his religious upbringing: “The fact that you have attacked these women not withstanding your background must represent your own wholly warped personality.”

But the headline suggests to the reader that it was the man’s strict adherence to his faith which produced the violent misogyny that led him to commit these crimes.

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