Category Archives: Women

School assistant loses veil appeal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim teaching assistant has lost her appeal against an employment tribunal’s decision that not being allowed to wear a veil in the classroom was not discrimination.

Aishah Azmi, 24, was suspended on full pay after staff at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, said pupils found it harder to understand her. A Leeds employment tribunal dismissed three of Mrs Azmi’s claims of discrimination and harassment, but found that she was victimised and awarded her £1,000 for “injury to feelings”. A month later, the local education authority sacked her from her post as a bilingual support worker. Mrs Azmi, of Thornhill Lees, Dewsbury, said she was willing to remove her veil in front of children but not when male colleagues were present.

Her lawyer Nick Whittingham said: “The EAT (Employment Appeal Tribunal) has not upheld the appeal.” But Mr Whittingham, of the Kirklees Law Centre, said the EAT accepted that it was possible for direct discrimination to occur in respect of a manifestation of a religious belief such as the wearing of the veil. He said it was an “important test case”.

Press Association, 30 March 2007

Victory for reactionary racism: Quebec election

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Quebec election was characterized by a great deal of discontent with the traditional establishment parties, the PQ and the Liberals. The remarkable thing about this election was that this discontent was successfully shifted from the policies that ostensibly pissed people off in the first place, onto to Muslims living in Quebec. Turning anger at unrelated issues into anger at immigrants is hardly a new political technique, but watching it happen here in Montreal is pretty astounding.”

The Dominion weblog, 28 March 2007

See also “Quebec state yields to right-wing provocation on eve of provincial election”, World Socialist Web Site, 26 March 2007

Ban the veil, says ultra-left sectarian

Posted on by Bob Pitt

namazie and racist placards 2Maryam Namazie of the Worker Communist Party of Iran – who was the National Secular Society’s “secularist of the year” in 2005 – once again explains why, in the interests of “progress”, the right of Muslim women to dress as they choose must be suppressed:

“There are innumerable women and girls in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa to right here in the heart of Europe who know from personal experience what it means to be female under Islam – hidden from view, bound, gagged, mutilated, murdered, without rights, and threatened and intimidated day in and day out for transgressing Islamic mores. The veil, more than anything else, symbolises this bleak reality….

“I know our opponents often argue that there are many more pressing matters with regards to women’s status. Why all the fuss they ask? To me, it is like asking what all the fuss was about racial apartheid – or segregation of the races – in apartheid South Africa.

“… some of these apologists will concede that compulsory veiling must be opposed … but if it is a choice freely made than one must defend the ‘right’ to veil. I wholeheartedly disagree…. There may be women who ‘freely choose’ to genitally mutilate their daughters or immolate themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre but that does not mean that we must then defend the right of women to do so or defend the practice of Suttee or FGM….

“The veil is not a piece of cloth or clothing, though it is often compared to miniskirts or other ‘lewd’ forms of clothing the rest of us unveiled women seem to wear. Just as the straight jacket or body bag are not pieces of clothing. Just as the chastity belt was not a piece of clothing. Just as the Star of David pinned on Jews during the holocaust was not just a bit of cloth….

“And this is why the chador, burqa and neqab must be banned – to defend women’s rights…. Because it is unacceptable for women to be segregated in the 21st century; and for women to walk around in a mobile prison or body bag because religion deems that they be kept invisible…. The hijab or any conspicuous religious symbol must be banned from the state and education and relegated to the private sphere. This helps to ensure that government offices and officials from judges, to clerks, to doctors and nurses are not promoting their religious beliefs and are instead doing their jobs….

“Throughout history, progress and change have come about not by appeasing, apologizing or excusing reaction, but by standing up to it firmly and unequivocally. This is what has to be against Islam, political Islam and the veil. We have to state loud and clear that sexual apartheid has no place in the 21st century; enough is enough.”

Scoop, 26 March 2007

‘Quebec’s Le Pen’ likely to make major election gain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A young conservative populist sometimes described as Quebec’s Jean-Marie Le Pen is likely in today’s election to throw a spanner into the separatist versus federalist competition that has dominated Quebec politics for decades.

Polls indicate Mario Dumont’s Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), a small fringe party for the past three elections, is about to seize the balance of power in the first minority parliament in 129 years. The ADQ has side-swiped the separatist Parti Quebecois and the ruling federalist Liberals, led by Jean Charest, by exploiting a backlash against multiculturism, especially Muslims.

A debate has developed throughout the province about what constitutes reasonable accommodation to the cultural and social practices of expanding ethnic communities. It was fuelled when, for example, a conservative Hasidic synagogue forced a sports centre to paint the windows of its swimming pool so students would not see people in swimming costumes.

Muslim headscarves and niqabs have also become a subject of controversy, especially when an 11-year-old girl was thrown out of a football match for wearing one. Quebec’s chief electoral officer has ordered that Muslim women must bare their faces if they want to vote, after an outcry over his original ruling that face coverings were acceptable.

M. Dumont, who describes himself as an autonomist wanting more power for Quebec, will probably tonight be in a position to implement many of the rightist, inward-looking policies on which he has campaigned. Both M. Charest and the Parti Quebecois leader, Andre Boisclair, seemed oblivious to the issue until polls showed M. Dumont was surging ahead.

Independent, 26 March 2007

‘A veiled threat by fanatics’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Paul Ross“Common sense seems to have prevailed in the High Court ruling giving schools the right to ban Muslim girls from wearing the full face niqab.

“Judge Stephen Silber rejected a 12-year-old grammar school pupil’s demand to wear one at school. She said it was her human right to turn up looking like a Muslim version of Bat Girl. He disagreed….

“This may seem like a small case but more and more it seems that extreme – and extremely vocal – Muslims are pushing away at our laws and customs in the name of religion when in fact it’s fanaticism.

“The judge agreed with the school’s view that wearing the niqab could lead to peer pressure on other Muslim girls to follow suit. Where’s the freedom of choice in that? But the bullying, bleating extremists never seem to be put off by a set-back. They also appear to have no sense of shame.

“On the same day the niqab decision was announced Britain’s most prominent Islamic organisaion, the Muslim Council of Britain, said that Muslim kids should have separate changing rooms for swimming and sport with individual cubicles – even for primary school kids – prayer rooms and single sex classes for biology lessons, which should stress ‘Islamic morals’. Oh, and they also want different uniform rules, a plea which has already been booted out.

“Of course these demands are not just unreasonable – they are downright impossible. And the Muslim Council of Britain must know that if they read even the occasional infidel’s newspaper or have an ounce of sense in their bearded bonces…. But it’s not really about getting what they want – it’s about making a lot of noise and nuisance and promoting a sense of grievance among Muslims – to keep the anger and resentment simmering.

“That’s why Mr Justice Silber’s verdict is so important. Respect and tolerance for other religions, yes – and a little tolerance by some Muslim leaders of Judaism and Christianity would make a real change.”

Paul Ross in the Daily Star, 25 February 2007

Muslim face veil banned in Quebec vote

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MONTREAL – Muslim women will have to remove their face coverings if they want to vote in upcoming elections in Quebec, a government official said Friday, reversing his earlier decision to allow the veils.

Marcel Blanchet, the French-speaking province’s election chief, had been criticized by Quebec’s three main political leaders for allowing voters to wear the niqab, which covers the entire face except for the eyes, if they signed a sworn statement and showed identification when they vote.

But Blanchet reversed his earlier decision Friday, saying it was necessary to avoid disruptions when residents go to the polls. “Relevant articles to electoral laws were modified to add the following: any person showing up at a polling station must be uncovered to exercise the right to vote,” he said.

Blanchet had to get two bodyguards after the Quebec elections office received threatening phone calls and e-mails following his initial decision to allow niqabs.

The reversal was condemned by Muslims groups who said it could turn their members away from the polls. “I am so saddened, I doubt many of these women will show up at the polls on Monday after all this mockery,” said Sarah Elgazzar of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Last week in Quebec, a young Muslim woman was forced to quit her job at a prison after she refused to remove her headscarf. The public security department supported the decision, citing security concerns, but Muslim groups pointed out that the Canadian Armed Forces allow women to wear headscarves on active duty.

Last month, an 11-year-old Muslim girl from Ontario participating in a soccer tournament in Quebec was pulled from the field after she refused the referee’s request to remove her headscarf.

Associated Press, 23 March 2007

Veil ban in schools will be divisive, say teachers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letter in today’s Guardian:

You reported that following new guidance from the education secretary, Alan Johnson, headteachers are to be given the right to ban Muslim girls from wearing the niqab or veil in schools (Report, March 20). Various reasons are put forward as a justification for this, including security.

The claim that the tiny number of girls who wear the niqab are a security risk would be laughable if it did not demonise a vulnerable group of students. It should be remembered that similar claims from Jack Straw last year led to physical attacks on women wearing the veil.

In France where the hijab or headscarf has been banned in some schools, the result has been division and conflict. As teachers we are committed to building inclusive, multicultural and tolerant school communities. At a time of increased Islamophobia, talking about bans on the very few young women who wear the veil can only help to sow discord in our schools.

Kevin Courtney
Executive member, National Union of Teachers
Alex Kenny, Ray Sirotkin, Sara Tomlinson, Gordon White, Sally Kincaid, Nick Grant, Barry Conway, Ken Muller

Daily Mail columnist defends tolerance and equality

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Frances Childs“Several years ago I started work at a prestigious sixth form college on the outskirts of London…. I was utterly flummoxed when I entered the classroom on my first day to be confronted by three girls in the back row, sitting side by side wearing the niqab, the full-face veil which leaves only a tiny slit for the eyes. Recovering myself, introductions were made. The voices behind the veils told me their names but – because there were no faces to put them to – I promptly forgot them.

“In the year that I taught the class, the girls never sat next to anyone else. They never entered into class discussion and I admit that I never asked them their opinions about the books that we read. Simply, they embarrassed me…. So it was with delight that I read this week that schools will be able to ban pupils from wearing the full-face veils….

“The issue of the veil and Muslim girls has been sorted out once and for all in France. Unhampered by any concerns about possibly offending this or that group, the French government passed a law banning the wearing of any religious insignia at all…. Perhaps it’s time we passed a similar law in this country rather than simply letting individual schools decide the dress code. Otherwise, religious fundamentalists will be back, pushing ever harder against the barriers of tolerance, common sense and equality that we have fought so hard to preserve in this country.”

Frances Childs in the Daily Mail, 22 March 2007

Muslim leader ‘dismayed’ by new ban on veil-wearing at schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) slammed new government guidelines spelling out the right of school heads to ban pupils from wearing religious dress such as the Islamic veil as “simply shocking” on Tuesday.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson has drawn up the updated guidance. The change follows defeat for a 12-year-old girl in a legal battle to wear the full-face niqab in class in her Buckinghamshire school last month. A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills said that the government was not trying to impose a blanket ban on veils at schools.

But IHRC chairman Massoud Shadjareh said that he was “dismayed” at the guidelines. “Successive ministers, dealing with education issues, have failed to give proper guidance when requested by human rights campaigners about schools’ obligations regarding religious dress, including the head scarf, and other service delivery under human rights laws and norms. To now proceed to issue guidance against Muslim communities is simply shocking,” he added.

Muslim Council of Britain education spokesman Tahir Alam played down the significance of the new guidelines. He argued that “the matter still remains with the governing bodies and communities to resolve.”

Morning Star, 21 March 2007

See IHRC press release, 20 March 2007

See also the Guardian, 20 March 2007  and the Independent, 21 March 2007