Abercrombie & Fitch to pay $20,000 in damages for discrimination against Samantha Elauf

Samantha ElaufTULSA, Okla. — A federal jury has awarded $20,000 in compensatory damages to a Muslim woman who alleged that Abercrombie & Fitch discriminated against her because she wore a head scarf.

The six-member panel deliberated more than four hours Wednesday before deciding on damages against the clothing retailer.

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Tulsa woman testifies in Abercrombie hijab case

A Tulsa woman testified Tuesday that she hopes her role in a lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch will set a positive example for other young Muslims. “If they’re able to shop there, they should be able to get a job there, too,” Samantha Elauf, 20, told a Tulsa federal jury.

Elauf was not hired to work at an Abercrombie Kids store at Woodland Hills Mall in June 2008 after she wore a hijab – or religiously mandated headscarf – to her job interview. She testified Tuesday that she felt insulted and disrespected after she discovered that she was not hired because of the headscarf. “It was shocking to me,” Elauf said. “I thought I was like everybody else.”

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Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights blasts burqa bans as ‘sad capitulation to the prejudices of xenophobes’

Thomas Hammarberg comment

The Council of Europe, the oldest European institution which specialises in human rights, today (20 July) strongly criticised recent French and Belgian legislation targeting the burqa, a veil that covers entirely women’s faces.

Penalising women who wear the burqa does not liberate them, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, said today in a written statement.

Hammarberg explained that a law in Belgium will enter into force on 23 July, introducing fines and up to seven days of imprisonment for women wearing such dress. Meanwhile in France, since April anyone who wears the niqab or burqa in public is subject to fines of 150 euros and/or “citizenship training”.

He adds that “loud voices” in countries such as Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland are demanding similar measures, while in northern Italy an old anti-terrorist law against concealing the face for security reasons has been used by some local authorities to punish women who wear full-cover veils.

The human rights commissioner rejects the view that such bans ‘liberate’ women, stressing that there is “very little” to show that this is the case.

Instead, Hammarberg insists that the way the dress of a small number of women has been portrayed as a major problem requiring urgent discussion and legislation is “a sad capitulation to the prejudices of xenophobes”.

“Much deeper problems of intercultural tensions and gaps have been side-tracked by the burqa and niqab discussions. Instead of encouraging this unfortunate discourse, political leaders and governments should take more resolute action against hate crimes and discrimination against minorities,” Hammarberg argues.

EurActiv, 20 July 2011

Kulsoom Abdullah honors Muslim faith, makes history at US weightlifting nationals

Kulsoom Abdullah 2Kulsoom Abdullah has become the first woman to compete in the U.S. weightlifting championships while wearing clothing that covers her legs, arms and head.

Abdullah was cleared to compete in accordance with her Muslim faith after the International Weightlifting Federation ruled two weeks ago that athletes could wear a full-body “unitard” under the customary weightlifting uniform.

Abdullah, a 35-year-old from Atlanta who weighs roughly 105 pounds, lifted before a small crowd Friday in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Wearing a flowing black hijab and matching top with a tan, long-sleeved undershirt and long black socks, Abdullah cleared a snatch of 41 kilograms, or just over 90 pounds, and 57 kilograms in the clean and jerk. Abdullah finished fifth out of six competitors in her weight class.

Associated Press, 15 July 2011

Belgian veil ban comes into force on 23 July

Belgium will enforce a burqa ban from July 23 with a fine and possible jail time for women who wear it, joining France as the second EU nation to forbid full veils, Belgian media said Thursday.

The new law was published Wednesday in the kingdom’s official journal after deputies approved it unanimously in parliament in April.

Offenders will face a fine of 137.50 euros ($195) and up to seven days behind bars. An estimated 270 people wear the face-covering niqab or the full-body burqa in Belgium.

AFP, 14 July 2011

Muslim woman sues Duane Reade over hijab ban

A former Duane Reade employee on Long Island says she was fired when she started wearing a hijab, a traditional Muslim head covering, a lawsuit charges. Hira Iqbal, 21, claims that boss Errol Smith told her store policy “does not allow people like that” to wear such clothes at work, claims the federal First Amendment lawsuit, filed in Central Islip. A spokesperson for Duane Reade said Iqbal quit and was not fired.

New York Post, 11 July 2011

Allow hijabs, say Quebec soccer players

FIFA hijab protestA group of Montreal women gathered Thursday to protest a Quebec soccer association’s decision to sack a referee because she wears a hijab. The protestors also called for the end of a controversial policy that bans headscarfs during soccer games.

The demonstraters – who played a pickup game near Montreal’s old port – said the association’s position is unacceptable.

Headscarfs are also banned by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, which governs international soccer. “We’re asking FIFA and any other organizations to get out of women’s wardrobes,” said Sana Saeed, who organized the protest.

Saeed was one of about a dozen women who wore hijabs Thursday afternoon as they played soccer to protest the firing of Sarah Benkirane – a 15-year old who officiated soccer games for two years in the West Island area of Montreal, and off island in Vaudreuil.

They also held their protest to show that it is possible to play soccer safely while wearing a headscarf. FIFA bans the hijab on the field saying it restricts a player’s breathing.

Naajia Isa, who has played soccer in Singapore where she said the hijab is more widely accepted, disagrees. “They don’t look at you and see the headscarf … they see a student, a mother, a daughter,” said Isa.

It was The Lac St. Louis Regional Soccer Association that fired Benkirane in June. At the time, it said it follows FIFA rules and won’t reverse its decision on hijabs.

The province’s soccer federation said Tuesday that Canada’s parallel organization also follows the FIFA rule prohibiting the hijab, and to change the rules, Benkirane would have to address the world soccer association.

In February 2007, five teams from across Canada walked out of a soccer tournament in Laval, Que., because a Muslim girl was ejected for wearing a hijab. FIFA upheld its rule banning the hijab the following week.

In early June, FIFA upheld a decision to prevent Iran’s women’s team from playing a 2012 Olympic qualifier game wearing head scarves.

CBC, 8 July 2011

See also “FIFA’s hijab hangup”, NOW Magazine, 7 July 2011

Auckland: Muslim women in bid to lift veil of ignorance

Hijab in the West meetingMuslim women in New Zealand want to lift the “veil of ignorance” surrounding the way they dress. They say women who choose to cover their faces do so out of personal choice, with one comparing it to the veils worn by nuns.

About 60 women gathered at Auckland University on Friday night to discuss “Hijab in the West”, organised by the Young Muslim Women’s Association to discuss the Muslim headscarf and veil.

The women-only meeting was organised before it was revealed last week that a bus driver refused entry to a woman in a veil in May. The Saudi Arabian student was left crying on an Auckland street when the bus driver refused to let her board because of her veil. In another incident two days earlier, a driver for the same company, NZ Bus, told another woman to remove her veil.

Stuff, 10 July 2011

For an example of the ignorance Muslim women in New Zealand are up against see here.

Local woman, rights group question hijab removal procedure of Dearborn police

Rachel ChinavareDEARBORN — A local Muslim woman along with a Council on American-Islamic Relations-Michigan spokesman have questioned the protocol of the city’s police department after the woman was forced to remove her headscarf in the presence of male officers during a “facial recognition” procedure.

Rachel Chinavare said she was made to sit in a waiting area in the station without her hijab and then was forced to walk into a room containing five male officers to retrieve it from a locker after her request to have it brought to her in a separate room was refused. Chinavare said she felt embarrassed and was denied her religious need for privacy and modesty in the presence of men.

Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad said that officers followed standard procedure during the night regarding the facial identification process. Chinavare was also not allowed to continue wearing her hijab while waiting because it is perceived by the department guidelines as a potential hazard for despondent people who have been arrested and may wish to hang themselves. Haddad said that belts, shoelaces and other items are also removed and put in lockers because of the policy.

But Chinavare said she was cooperative after her initial disbelief over being asked to remove the hijab and could not have been perceived as a threat to harm herself.

Dawud Walid of CAIR-MI said he was surprised to hear about Dearborn’s policies in treating Muslim women wearing a hijab and respecting their religious need for privacy among male officers.

“Headscarves are allowed for Muslim women in state correctional facilities as long as they are not high risk, and taking pictures while having a hijab on is good enough for the Michigan driver’s license and for the federal government to get a passport, so why can’t it be good enough for the city of Dearborn?”

Walid said that he would like to speak with the department about possibly instituting similar protocols to the Canton Police Department, which has begun using a policy that allows Muslim women to wear headscarves during the booking process which includes taking a picture. “That’s a model I would hope Dearborn Police would take up,” he said.

Arab American News, 8 July 2011

NZ Muslim women ‘regularly’ told to remove veils

Two veil wearing Muslim women, living in New Zealand, say they are often asked to remove them. They were speaking on TV ONE’s Close Up about the case of a woman who was refused entry to a bus because she was wearing a burqa.

The incident happened when the woman, a student from Saudi Arabia, was trying to board a bus in Auckland in May. The student, who was wearing a veil with only the eyes exposed, was left crying on the street after reportedly being shouted at by the driver. However, it was not an isolated incident as two days earlier a driver for the same company told another woman to remove her veil.

In Australia, three non-Muslim women wearing the burqa immediately felt the weight of stares when they stepped out into a city centre, as part of a television programme to gauge the public reaction. In a mall they were subjected to verbal attacks from women with comments like “I’d pull it off you right now” and “We can’t see your eyes”.

New Zealand Muslim woman Farzana Saheb told Close Up the reaction in New Zealand  to her wearing the full burqa and veil varies a lot. “The sort of remarks you can see happening in Australia, that does happen on a regular basis sometimes to us,” she said. “Some people say ‘take it off’ while others will come up to you and say ‘you know you don’t have to wear that here.’ And some people do come up to you and ask nicely ‘so why do you have to wear that?’. And that’s I think the best way to come up to us because we’re very willing to just explain our belief to you.”

Another Muslim woman living in New Zealand, Moveena Rasheed said: “If you’re in a mall or you’re walking people come up to you and say ‘remove that, why do you need to wear that’.” Rasheed said she “totally understands” why people find it disquieting to only see people’s eyes and not their faces. “And so I think it’s important how we react as well. It’s very important when I see someone reacting in a very negative manner that I do have an understanding that it’s something new for him or her. I think we need to take a step to educate ourselves.”

She said New Zealand is a tolerant and diverse country and she was surprised and saddened that the woman concerned had to go through the experience of not being allowed on a bus.

TVNZ, 5 July 2011