Category Archives: Women

Ontario: woman has niqab pulled off in assault

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim woman from Mississauga, Ont., who had her niqab pulled from her face at a local mall, says her young children no longer feel secure with only her nearby.

Inas Kadri, whose assault at Sheridan Centre in Mississauga was caught on a security camera, spoke to CBC News on Tuesday as she awaits the sentencing of the woman who attacked her.

Kadri was shopping with her three-year-old son and two-year-old daughter when she was approached by two women. One of the women began swearing at her, about her religion and her veil, telling her, “Leave our country. Go back to your country,” Kadri said.

The woman can be seen in the video grabbing Kadri’s veil and pulling her off-camera. The attacker walked away while Kadri ran for help.

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Drunk abused Muslim woman in headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A mother-of-three ­racially abused a ­Muslim woman before spitting in the face of a police officer, a court has heard.

India McConnell, of Netley Road, Newbury Park, stood in front of a woman wearing a burka before shouting a racist slur and telling her to “go home”. Redbridge Magistrates’ Court heard the 27-year-old had been drinking the previous day and all night before the incident at 8.45am in Ilford Lane at its junction with Winston Way on October 4.

In a statement read out by the prosecution lawyer, a witness said Miss McConnell pulled up her top mimicking the ­woman’s head scarf before shouting the abuse. The witness said the woman was with four children, two in prams, who were “horrified”. He asked why she was shouting to which she ­replied: “This is England. She should go back home.”

He said she was becoming confrontational and she tried to get him into a side road. Fearing for his safety he called police. On seeing police Miss McConnell ran off through the car park of the Exchange Ilford, the court heard on Thursday. She was detained and arrested by Pc Simon Jackson and taken to Barkingside Police Station in a van. She had been kicking the door and when it was opened by Mr Jackson she remained aggressive and spat in his face, magistrates were told.

Miss McConnell pleaded guilty to using racially aggravated threatening and abusive words or ­behaviour but insisted she was not racist. She was bailed and will be sentenced on December 1.

Ilford Recorder, 14 November 2011

Via ENGAGE

Drunk abused Muslim woman in headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A mother-of-three ­racially abused a ­Muslim woman before spitting in the face of a police officer, a court has heard.

India McConnell, of Netley Road, Newbury Park, stood in front of a woman wearing a burka before shouting a racist slur and telling her to “go home”. Redbridge Magistrates’ Court heard the 27-year-old had been drinking the previous day and all night before the incident at 8.45am in Ilford Lane at its junction with Winston Way on October 4.

In a statement read out by the prosecution lawyer, a witness said Miss McConnell pulled up her top mimicking the ­woman’s head scarf before shouting the abuse. The witness said the woman was with four children, two in prams, who were “horrified”. He asked why she was shouting to which she ­replied: “This is England. She should go back home.”

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US Army agrees to review rule against headscarfs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The U.S. Army has agreed to review one of its policies that prevented a 14-year-old Muslim girl in Tennessee from marching in a homecoming parade while wearing her Islamic headscarf.

Freshman Demin Zawity had been enthusiastically participating in Ravenwood High School’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and was looking forward to the parade, her mother Perishan Hussein told a local news station.

However, just before the event Zawity was told she’d have to remove her headscarf, called a hijab, because it wasn’t an official part of the uniform. Even though she volunteered to tuck it under her shirt and wear the uniforms’ cap on top of it, she was told it still was a problem, her mother said.

Heartbroken, Zawity dropped out of the program and her family wrote to the Council on American-Islamic Relations for help. They didn’t want to sue, but simply wanted a policy change, an apology and a chance for Zawity to be readmitted to the program.

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Air France accepts that Muslim women don’t have to remove veils on plane

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French cabin crews have no right to tell Muslim women to remove their burqa aboard Air France flights – despite a nationwide ban on full face veils, the airline has ruled.

Islamic passengers can be ordered to remove the garment while waiting in French airports to board the plane at the gate. But once on board, they are free to put their burqa back on, according to an internal memo to staff from Air France’s legal department.

The company’s lawyers said: “Flight crews on board planes can not ask a person to uncover their face if they are hiding it. The law can only be enforced by police and other public officials on the ground.”

But pilots said they had “no issue” with women wearing burqas during flights – as long as they had been through security checks before the flight. One told French daily Le Figaro:

“As long as burqa-wearers have been checked before getting on board, then I can’t see the problem. Security on board a plane does not have much to do with whether one’s face is visible or not. Besides, on long-haul flights a lot of passengers hide their face with eye masks when they go to sleep.”

Daily Mail, 9 November 2011

Swedish court bans niqab-wearing women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Three women wearing head scarves completely shielding their faces were denied entry to a Gothenburg courtroom on Friday during the remand hearing of one of the suspects in the Röda Sten murder plot case.

“I am responsible for order in this court room and I feel I can’t achieve that if I am unable to see the faces of the people present,” said district court judge Stefan Wikmark to Swedish TV4.

The three women were stopped as they were trying to enter the courtroom for the remand hearing 26-year-old Abdi Aziz Mahamud who is under suspicion for plotting the murder of Swedish artist Lars Vilks at an art exhibition in Gothenburg in September. All three women were wearing niqabs covering them from head to toe.

One of the guards at the Gothenburg District Court prevented them from stepping into the court room, referring to the ban on face coverings, according to TV4’s affiliate in Gothenburg. The decision to refuse the women from entering the court room while wearing their traditional garb was taken by Wikmark during the remand negotiations.

The Local, 28 October 2011

CAIR asks Sherburne County sheriff to allow woman’s headscarf in jail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A civil rights group Thursday asked a sheriff to accommodate a Muslim woman’s religious beliefs and let her cover her head with a scarf.

Sherburne County Sheriff Joel Brott said that he’d meet with the group, the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but that he wasn’t changing the policy barring female Muslim prisoners from wearing hijabs. “We do not intend to change our policy on this,” Brott said. “We believe it is a safety and security issue. We don’t allow personal clothing in the facility.”

The state chapter of CAIR sent a letter to the sheriff after the Pioneer Press reported Thursday that Amina Farah Ali refused to leave her cell because she’s not allowed to wear her hijab. Ali, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in Rochester, Minn., was jailed after she was convicted in federal court last week of sending money to al-Shabaab, a group in her homeland of Somalia that the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

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French court backs private nursery over Islamic headscarf sacking

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Baby LoupA French court has ruled that a private nursery had the right to fire an employee for wearing Islamic head-cover, leading its lawyer to hail an advance for secular forces in the country.

An appeal court in Versailles backed up an earlier ruling by a labour court that the Baby Loup nursery in Mantes-la-Jolie was within its rights to sack Fatima Afif in 2008 for refusing to take off her headscarf.

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FIFA to consider amending hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FIFA vice president Prince Ali Al Hussein will propose that soccer’s governing body agree on “general principles” for the use of Islamic headscarfs. He’ll bring the issue up at the meeting of the executive committee in December. FIFA banned the Islamic scarf covering a women’s neck in 2007, claiming safety concerns.

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