Category Archives: Women

No hijab at schools: UK minister

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Phil WoolasOnly two weeks in his post, Britain’s new immigration minister believes that hijab should not be allowed at British schools. “People wear veils for different reasons: some out of religious conviction. some because they’re forced to. It should be up to them,” Phil Woolas told The Times on Saturday, October 18. “But at school you shouldn’t wear one. It’s harder to get a good education if you wear a veil as you’re more cut off.”

Islam Online, 18 October 2008

Islamophobia Watch hesitates to defend Phil Woolas, but to be fair we think he was talking about a ban on the niqab rather than the headscarf (not that we’d support that either, of course). But he should be asked to clarify his remarks.

Incidentally, we can’t help noting that Woolas’s Times interview, with its call for “a tougher immigration policy” and unpleasant talk about “putting British people first” and “not pandering to Hampstead liberals” over immigration, is reproduced with evident approval by Searchlight on their Stop the BNP site. Presumably they, like Woolas himself, think that the way to stop fascism is to adopt the fascists’ own rhetoric.

France bans immigrants wearing burqas in state language classes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In secular France, it is illegal for hotel owners to turn away women wearing Muslim headscarves but OK to ban those wearing head-to-toe burqas from state-sponsored French language classes.

Two recent decisions have demonstrated how tough and touchy it is to legislate religious expression in a country that has a long-standing separation between church and state – and an increasingly multicultural society with a growing Muslim population.

“Religious freedom is not absolute,” the head of France’s government anti-discrimination agency, Louis Schweitzer, said in an interview with the Catholic daily La Croix, published Thursday. He said authorities are trying to find “the most reasonable compromise.”

His agency ruled last month that it was acceptable to ban women wearing the burqa and niqab – billowing clothes that cover the body and face worn by pious Muslim women – from state-sponsored French language classes for immigrants.

Earlier this year, a national agency responsible for dealing with new immigrants complained that the presence of the veiled women “hinders the proper functioning” of the language classes and asked the anti-discimination agency, known as Halde, to examine the matter.

In its Sept. 15 decision, Halde called the burqa a symbol of “female submission that goes beyond its religious meaning” and said it is “not unreasonable, for public security requirements … or the protection of civil liberties” to bar it from the publicly funded language classrooms.

USA Today, 9 October 2008

Via Islam in Europe

Ban Muslim headscarves, say [some] teachers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Teachers TVForty-six percent of primary and secondary school teachers suggested that allowing pupils to wear religious symbols went against British values. They also feared it would undermine the drive to promote religious and racial harmony in schools.

The findings, in a poll carried out by YouGov, will fuel the controversial debate about the wearing of religious symbols in schools.

Currently, individual schools are free to make their own decisions, but a string of recent court ruling said some policies amounted to “unlawful discrimination”. In July, a Sikh schoolgirl, won a discrimination case against her school after she was banned from wearing a religious bangle.

The poll, commissioned by Teachers TV, found that more than 70 per cent of teachers agreed that the promotion of British values was part of a teacher’s role.

Andrew Bethell, chief executive of Teachers TV, said that the results marked a “shift away from multiculturalism” in the “post 7/7 Britain”. He added: “There seems to be an increasing feeling among teachers that simply embracing difference is no longer enough. Pupils need a sense of common identity and ‘Britishness’ is a big part of this.”

Daily Telegraph, 3 October 2008

Neocon CIP launches campaign against domestic violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pipes and CIP

“Muslim spiritual leaders could be denounced publicly by their own community as part of a campaign to expose imams whose silence on domestic abuse is leading to women being burnt, lashed and raped in the name of Islam.

“Muslim scholars are to present the Government with the names of imams who are alleged by members of their own communities to have refused to help abused women. Imams are also accused of refusing to speak out against domestic abuse in their sermons because they fear losing their clerical salaries and being sacked for broaching a ‘taboo’ subject.

“Some of Britain’s most prominent moderate imams and female Muslim leaders have backed the campaign, urging the Home Office to vet more carefully Islamic spiritual leaders coming to Britain to weed out hardliners.”

Times, 26 September 2008

Read on, and you find that the organisation behind this campaign is the so-called Center for Islamic Pluralism, which was founded by ex-Trotskyist-turned-neocon Stephen Schwartz with financial assistance from Daniel Pipes.

In the UK the CIP has precisely one identifiable member – Irfan al-Alawi. In other words, it represents nothing at all in the Muslim community. So it would certainly be interesting to hear which of “Britain’s most prominent moderate imams and female Muslim leaders” are backing Alawi’s campaign, which is cynically using the serious issue of domestic violence to promote the CIP’s cranky obsession with “Wahhabism” and discredit genuinely representative Muslim organisations that reject Schwartz’s pro-imperialist politics.

Al Jazeera TV focus on Irish family who want hijab in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arabic news network Al Jazeera has taken an active interest in the plight of an Irish girl who wants to wear a religious headscarf to school.

The Egan family from Wexford, who were caught up in the row over the wearing of the hijab in Irish schools have been featured on the Al Jazeera English channel. Liam and his wife Beverley requested that their 14-year-old daughter, Shekinah Egan, be allowed to wear the religious headdress to Gorey Community School last September, sparking debate on the issue.

The Government refused to take a stand on the issue, leaving it as a matter for individual schools. Mr Egan has accused the Government of repressing minority rights while “flaunting itself as the bastion of democracy”.

The father of the young schoolgirl spoke to the news network and said that, “It is time the world witnessed the true face of Ireland. “The issue of the hijab [Islamic headscarf] is a reflection of how Ireland treats its minorities,” he said. “It has silently repressed Muslim rights while flaunting itself as the bastion of democracy for far too long.”

Shekinah Egan was allowed to continue wearing the headscarf. However her father claims that several schools moved towards banning the wearing of the hijab, with one school in Dublin stating it violates the country’s “Catholic ethos”.

Ruairi Quinn, Labour Party spokesman, recently spoke about how immigrants who come to Ireland “need to conform”. However, the Egans in Wexford are an Irish family who have converted to Islam. Liam Egan converted to Islam at the age of 28 and his wife Beverley MacKenzie is British born.

“This is not an immigrant issue,” Liam Egan proclaimed. “It’s about freedom to practise religious beliefs. We should not follow the lead of France, where there is no tolerance. People say we should assimilate, but I was born in Wexford – I am Irish and Muslim.”

Evening Herald, 16 September 2008

Belgium: How Islam corrupts the schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Le Vif Comment l'Islam Menace l'EcoleBelgian French-language magazine Le Vif/L’Express has come out with a five page spread in its August 29th issue about Islam in the Belgian school system.

The headline on the cover – “How Islam Threatens the School” – and the article’s title – “How Islam Corrupts the School” – have already drawn criticisms.

Sadly, the article itself is not available freely online, though I understand it doesn’t really bring any new data. Most schools in Brussels ban the veil, but there are other Muslim requirements from the school system – offering halal food or banning pork, enabling girls to drop gym and swimming classes and not to attend school outings, enabling students to fast at Ramadan, and giving students a place to pray at school.

The article claims that teachers and principles feel they can’t handle the situation. Not only in the case of science and creationism, teachers feel they’re being forced to adapt the curriculum in other subjects such as geography and history so as not to offend students.

Part of the criticism is that besides noting that 30% of schoolgirls in Brussels are Muslims, the article does not give factual data on how many such cases of demands there are from Muslim students and parents.

I received a response from Karim Chemlal, head of the League of Muslims in Belgium, who accuses the exposé of being shallow and not going into the real debate. He points to a study that says Islam is sometimes used as an excuse by students whose true motive is to provoke the system.

Islam in Europe, 4 September 2008

Let Muslim women speak

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The last few weeks have been particularly eventful for Muslim women on Comment is Free. We would have felt extremely exhausted by all the excitement, were it not for the fact that – with the notable exception of Samia Rahman and Reefat Drabu – we were spared the ignominy of having to participate in the debate ourselves.

“AC Grayling started us off by equating the headscarf with an iron shackle and stating that Muslim women are complicit in their own oppression. In the process of attacking the abhorrent denial of freedom that Muslim women can wrongly suffer, Grayling (in)advertently takes away the very same freedom of choice to decide to wear the hijab if we choose.

“Julie Burchill bigged up Christianity, and in the process scathingly dismissed Islam and Muslim women. The only “Muslim” women she suggested as role models – Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji – were those she claimed had rejected Islam and were no longer Muslim….

“Islamic theology has a strong framework for a blueprint of gender equality…. we may say, believe and do things which don’t fit in with the caricature of a Muslim woman who would be desperate to be ‘liberated’ from Islam if only she knew it.

“You may find our voices reverberating with the view that we like being Muslim women, we just want to make our lives better and in line with true Islamic principles. It would be nice if those who debate vociferously about Muslim women would therefore move over and give us the seat at the table that we’re demanding.”

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at Comment is Free, 2 September 2008

Modernising Muslims sign up as Scottish ambassadors to Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Scottish Islamic Foundation“Scottish Muslims are planning a radical campaign to play a greater role in the country’s civic life, to change the perceptions of their religion and to promote Scotland as an ideal country for Muslims to live and invest in.

“Members of the newly formed Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF) are planning to launch the campaign, which will engage with issues such as the removal of nuclear weapons from Faslane and the environment. Women will also be given a voice within mosques and will be encouraged to form committees to decide policies specific to them.”

The Sunday Herald reports on the actual role played by the Scottish Islamic Foundation, in contrast to the ludicrous potrayal of the SIF promoted by the likes of Douglas Murray and Melanie Phillips.

‘End the silence over Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Am I alone in my disquiet about our government’s courtship of the Scottish Islamic Foundation? In the 1970s, young women like me embraced multiculturalism; we were engaging with our oppressed sisters everywhere around the world. Or so it seemed at the time. Where are we now? And why are we so effectively silenced?

“Why do we have nothing to say about a sharia credit card? Have we really forgotten what sharia law means for women? While English clerics debate the pros and cons of introducing an element of sharia law into their legal system, where are our voices in this debate? Do we seriously think it won’t happen in Scotland? Look at their website. It’s happening already.

“What do we think about the headline ‘Muslim sprinter wins Olympic sprint dressed head to toe in hijab’ (from the Scottish Islamic Foundation website)? Or of Al Jazeera talking to Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy first minister, about a ‘Scottish division’ of their TV station. Why on earth would they want a Scottish division? I need to know.

“I am not opposed, in principle, to any of these, but I am opposed to the suffocating, politically correct silence that now surrounds any criticism of organisations such as the Scottish Islamic Foundation. We need to bring this debate into the open. I don’t fear the debate; I fear the silence.”

Letter in the Scotsman, 29 August 2008