“I would like to say that the proposed legislation in France banning conspicuous religious symbols in state schools and institutions is essential and an important step forward in the defence of secularism and women’s and children’s rights, but it is not enough. We have to go further.”
Azar Majedi of the Worker Communist Party of Iran, who evidently understands neither Marxism nor secularism, advocates state repression of religion.
See here.
The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) strongly opposes the plans Home Secretary Charles Clarke intends to announce today to place certain individuals suspected of terrorism under house arrest. The measures are aimed at saving the face of the government and delivering it out of a predicament caused by illegally detaining suspects without trial for prolonged periods of time.
MAB believes that those suspected of offences should be brought before a court of law. If the eleven suspects held at Belmarsh prison cannot be tried in a court of law for lack of evidence then they are innocent until proven otherwise and should not be punished by incarcerating them in any way.
Ahmed Al-Shiekh, President of MAB commented today: “The idea of putting suspects under house arrest while no evidence has been brought against them is simply a violation of a basic value of democracy and a serious encroachment on their human rights. “If adopted, these measures will constitute a dangerous precedent. They will grant powers to the executive at the expense of the judiciary and will therefore compromise the carriage of justice. “MAB calls for the immediate release of every detainee suspected of terrorism so long as the government has no sufficient evidence to try him before a court of law”.
As the election is approaching MAB intends to call on the public to consider this issue, which is an issue of civil liberties and human rights, to be a priority according to which candidates are assessed for eligibility. Therefore, sitting members of parliament are urged to oppose the proposed plans and deny the government the opportunity to undermine the rule of law and the role of the judiciary.
A French law banning hijab and religious insignia in state schools, which came into effect last September, has triggered a domino effect, with several ministries seeking to expand its application beyond public schools.
The Health Ministry was the latest to jump on the bandwagon, issuing a written directive on February 2 committing all hospitals to take a “neutral” position in dealing with their patients when it comes to religion. The directive, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net, provides for concealing any religious symbol in hospitals to protect the secular nature of the staff.
The ministry’s move is a grim reminder of the sacking of a hijab-garbed nurse in 2002 for refusing to take off the headscarf.
Le Figaro Magazine revealed on its Saturday’s edition that the Higher Learning and Labor ministries mull drafting similar laws banning hijab and religious symbols in state-run institutions and universities.
The magazine said that the minister of labor has already entered into talks with relevant French syndicates to ban hijab in public companies and corporations, especially those in direct touch with the lay people. It added that the minister admitted the difficulties of amending the existing labor laws, but said work contracts can include an item obliging female employees to take off their hijab inside the workplace.
The weekly further disclosed that some universities have banned students from wearing religious symbols inside campuses. A binding draft for all universities is being written to ban religious dress codes, according the magazine.
In January, a police station in Paris did not allow a group of veiled women to attend a party thrown for them for being granted French citizenship.
Taysir Alouni is a reporter for Aljazeera who is currently in prison in Spain on charges of membership of a “terrorist organisation”.
Islamic Human Rights Commission press release, 17 February 2005
The fallout from the US ban on Tariq Ramadan continues. A wider attack on the Kroc Institute at Notre Dame University, the academic institution where Professor Ramadam was due to take up his position as a lecturer, has been launched by Front Page Magagine.
See Thomas Ryan, ‘The Fighting Islamists of Notre Dame’.
Muslims intent on becoming German citizens will have to undergo a rigorous cultural test to gauge their views on subjects ranging from bigamy to homosexuality. Believed to be the first test of its kind in Europe, the southern state of Baden-Württemberg has created the two-hour oral exam to test the loyalty of Muslims towards Germany.
Brigitte Lösch, a leading member of the Green party in the Baden-Wurttemberg parliament, called for the oral exam to be dropped, arguing that it inferred from the outset that all Muslims were “violent per se” and unable to abide by German law. “This list of questions is only to be used for applicants from Islamic countries. It is an unbelievable form of discrimination,” she said. “If Germans were asked some of the questions, they would find it difficult to answer them.”
The European Assembly of Turkish Academics rejected the questionnaire as “strongly discriminatory and racist” against Germany’s three million-strong Muslim population, most of whom are Turkish. Kerim Arpad, an assembly spokesman, said: “The test is shaped by stereotypes and damages integration.”
Daily Telegraph, 31 December 2005
See also “German ‘culture test’ for would-be Muslim immigrants”, Islam Online, 31 December 2005
“The French intolerance is one that will not accept a non-society of discrete, uncomprehending ethnic or religious communities. Instead, they want to create a cross-cultural fraternité. It is this intolerance that we need more of in Britain today.”
Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian, 31 January 2005
Muslims feel so victimised by police use of anti-terror powers that the independent police watchdog is to examine all complaints regarding arrests under the legislation.
Serious grievances, involving death, severe injury, alleged racism or large-scale corruption automatically go straight to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. But in other cases, it is up to the relevant police service or the individuals concerned to bring the matter to the attention of the IPCC, which then decides whether to pursue it.
However, the commission thinks the practical application of counter-terrorist measures has so damaged Muslim confidence in the police that it is actively calling in every terrorism-related complaint.
The IPCC will tell the home affairs committee inquiry into terrorism and community relations today that it has requested all 43 English and Welsh police forces to refer complaints or conduct matters arising from anti-terrorist arrests and stop and search.
The IPCC is urging Muslims to come directly to commissioners with grievances, or to go through their mosques or community leaders.
Nick Hardwick, the IPCC chairman, said that Islamic representatives thought their community was being “disproportionately targeted” by the police and had raised “some very significant issues” with the commission regarding arrests and stop and search.
Since the September 11 2001 attacks, British anti-terrorist officers have arrested 701 people, of whom more than two-thirds are thought to be Muslim. But only 119 have been charged with terrorist offences and 17 convicted.
Taysir Alluni could never have suspected that the 9/11 attacks and the war against Afghanistan in its hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban leaders would dramatically change his life.
Journalist Taysir Alluni remains in a Spanish prison, Aljazeera reports.
“A strange alliance has arisen: from conservative members of the Muslim Association of Britain, the SWP, to London’s Mayor, all are in an uproar about ‘Islamophobia’. Ken Livingstone has taken it upon himself to criticise the French move to ban wearing ostentatious religious symbols in schools. He has also given lessons on religious freedom by defending a cleric, al-Qaradawi, who supports female genital mutilation. This bloc draws support from the mainstream of the Anglican Church and Prince Charles to, with rare exceptions, the bien-pensant pages of the Guardian.”
Andrew Coates in What Next? No.29