Category Archives: Women

Hijab ban red-cards Muslim team

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Scotland hijab banScotland’s first female Muslim football team has been prevented from playing competitive matches after soccer chiefs imposed a worldwide ban on wearing religious headdress during games.

Ansar Women’s FC, from the east end of Glasgow, were looking forward to their first league games this summer, until it became clear they could not play while wearing their hijab headscarves.

The decision was taken by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the game’s ultimate decision-making body, and part of FIFA. Law 4 of the sport’s regulations restricts a player’s kit to a shirt or jersey, shorts, socks and footwear.

Zuby Malik, a Glasgow-based sports worker and coach of the team, said it appeared to end hopes of Ansar Women’s FC being admitted to the Scottish Women’s Football Association league. Malik said:

“It is ridiculous that I will have to tell the girls that they won’t be able to join the league because of this nonsensical ruling. The majority of the girls in our team wear the hijab and it is completely unfair to ask people to choose between their faith and sport. Quite rightly their religion will always come first.”

Malik said London giants Arsenal had already expressed an interest in one of their players. “There is so much talent in the Asian community in Scotland, but this sends out the signal that football is not for them. Asians are already woefully under-represented in Scottish sport and this is another huge blow.”

The 27-year-old coach said there was no justification for banning headscarves and turbans. “There appears to be no logic at all behind this ruling. I don’t see how anyone could be injured through wearing a hijab or a turban or how it affects their game in any way.”

Scotland on Sunday, 24 June 2007

‘Infidel’ author: Islam, West incompatible

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ayaan Hirsi AliWASHINGTON – A former member of the Dutch parliament whose life has been threatened by Muslim radicals warns that Islam is incompatible with Western civilization.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was raised as a Muslim in Somalia, but renounced Islam and moved to Europe, a story she recounts in her autobiography, titled “Infidel.” She moved to the United States last year.

In a speech Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, Ali urged journalists to recognize that all religions are not equal, and that Islam is violent, intolerant and oppresses women.

Ali said she was brought up believing in “a ferocious aggressive god,” but is now an atheist. She said Islam is growing because Saudi Arabia and Iran finance Muslim schools and mosques, while Christian churches have lost their missionary zeal.

CBN News, 19 June 2007

Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s speech here

For the impact of Hirsi Ali’s visit to Australia, see Herald Sun, 20 June 2007

Muslim officer is first on the beat donning hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rukshana Begum is, without question, one of a kind. This week, the 23-year-old will become the first police officer ever to wear the Muslim hijab, or headscarf, on duty in Cambridgeshire. And she can’t wait. “I’ve struggled to get where I am,” she admits. “But I feel that my generation is the one which is going to break barriers. I hope that people will look at me and think, ‘If she can do it, so can I’.”

Cambridge Evening News, 18 June 2007

Wearing a headscarf in Detroit

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“You have nuns totally covered … and no one questions it. But when a Muslim does it, we’re from outer space.” The Detroit Free Press interviews Muslim women who wear the hijab.

One reader is not impressed: “There is no comparison between a covered nun and Islamic hijab. No one living in a Christian community has to worry about armed gangs breaking into a family home to threaten, beat or kill them because their daughters haven’t become nuns. Islamic women have to worry about that daily in the Islamic world, and even in European countries Islamic women are subject to ‘honor killings’.”

US judge: Police can ban religious Muslim garb

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Philadelphia PoliceA Philadelphia police officer has no right to wear a head covering as required by her Muslim faith when she is in uniform, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

The Police Department’s uniform code “has a compelling public purpose,” Judge Harvey Bartle III wrote in deciding against Kimberlie Webb, an officer since 1995. The uniform code “recognizes that the Police Department, to be effective, must subordinate individuality to its paramount group mission of protecting the lives and property of the people living, working and visiting the city of Philadelphia,” Bartle wrote. Furthermore, the department’s uniform code, known as Directive 78, maintains “religious neutrality,” the judge said.

The ruling countered a finding by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2003 that the department had violated Webb’s rights in barring her from wearing a hijab, also known as a khimar, over the top and back of her head.

The case began in February 2003, when Webb, a mother of six, filed an EEOC complaint after being denied a request to wear a hijab. In August 2003, Webb was sent home three times after showing up at roll call wearing the hijab despite being told not to do so. She also was later suspended for 13 days.

Police officials initially defended their actions by saying, in part, that Webb could have been hurt or restrained by somebody grabbing the hijab. In subsequent statements and legal arguments, the department, which was represented by law firm Cozen O’Connor, said its sole reason was fostering “obedience, unity, commitment and esprit de corps” with a uniform dress policy. Detracting from that policy would cause the department “undue hardship,” it said.

Philadelphia Daily News, 14 June 2007

Mad Mel on ‘honour killings’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The loathsome Melanie Phillips takes advantage of the tragic death of Banaz Mahmod to engage in yet more baiting of Muslims:

“The elephant in the room here – as so often – is that ‘honour killings’ are largely a Muslim phenomenon…. honour killings, the need to avenge the shame caused by a loss of honour, are rooted in values intrinsic to the way of life of many Muslims…. Much hot air is expended on how to integrate British Muslims into British society. But look what happens when the women try to do just that. Some of them end up murdered…. It’s quite simple. Integration can lead to murder because of the concepts of honour and shame embedded in Muslim culture…. Britain’s multicultural orthodoxy does not protect women like Banaz Mahmod. It signs their death warrant.”

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 12 June 2007

Cf. the Times, 13 June 2007

Pro-hijab rally in Brussels

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Residents in the Belgian capital have gathered to demonstrate their support of Islamic hijab as a freedom of choice for Muslim European women. Demonstrators took part in protests in Brussels Saturday against a decision by several school authorities to ban hijab, the Al Alam news channel reported.

Among the protestors were members of Islamic organizations, independent human rights groups and Muslim students. The demonstrators condemned what they said is an anti-Islam stance taken by officials in Belgium and supported the right of Muslims to freely practice the customs of their religion.

Press TV, 10 June 2007

Muslim girl’s headscarf airbrushed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim schoolgirl’s traditional headscarf was airbrushed from a class photograph, a parliamentary inquiry has heard. A state parliamentary inquiry into dress codes and school uniforms yesterday heard several Muslim students had been discriminated against because of their dress.

Islamic Council of Victoria executive committee member Sherene Hassan said the student wore her hijab in a class photograph, but it was airbrushed so it would not stand out. “You can imagine that was quite demoralising,” Ms Hassan said. Ms Hassan also told the inquiry one Victorian student was told she would not be admitted to school if she wore her hijab. “That individual was so keen to attend that school she decided not to wear her headscarf,” she said. While the majority of schools supported students who wore the headgear, some teachers needed more understanding of Islam, she said.

Herald Sun, 5 June 2007