Category Archives: Women

Court upholds Catalan city’s veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Spanish court has upheld a ban by a city on face-covering Islamic veils worn in municipal buildings.

In 2010, the city of Lleida became the first Spanish one to impose such a ban. But the Catalan regional Superior Justice Tribunal suspended it following an appeal by a Muslim association that claimed it violated basic rights.

The court ruled Wednesday that the northeastern city was within its rights to ban the clothing in municipal buildings for security and identification purposes. It also backed Lleida’s argument that the veils are discriminatory.

Other Spanish towns have taken similar steps but their burqa bans have yet to take effect.

Lleida’s one is largely symbolic since only about 3 percent of Lleida’s population is Muslim and very few wear face-covering garments.

Associated Press, 9 June 2011

Woman weightlifter fights to compete in hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kulsoom AbdullahA 35-year-old weightlifter is battling to be able to compete in the sport she loves while wearing a hijab instead of the body-hugging uniform that’s required.

Kulsoom Abdullah, who was born in the United States to Pakistani parents, discovered weightlifting at her gym, Crossfit, in Atlanta in 2008. She entered her first open competition last year, and was thrilled to find out that she was actually pretty good in the competitive sport. She can lift 70 kilos (about 154 pounds) to her shoulders, and 60 kilos (or about 132 pounds) over her head, in a move called the “clean-and-jerk.” Last December, she qualified for the American Open Weightlifting Championships, which would have been her first national competition.

But when her coaches asked whether she would be able to wear her modified uniform – which covers everything but her face, hands, and feet – the organizers told told them no.

Abdullah talked to some lawyer friends, who told her that other athletes had won their bids to wear different clothing for religious reasons. So she tried again, this time personally writing to USA Weightlifting with her request, and asking the group if it could compromise on a uniform.

Officials with the group wrote back and said they had to follow the rules of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), which mandates collarless uniforms and doesn’t allow exceptions.

“I was really disappointed because I was really looking forward to it,” she told The Lookout. “I had never thought I would qualify at the national level.”

“It is like saying, if you are different, you can not compete,” she wrote on her web site. “I am not asking people to change, I am just asking to participate and be able to dress the way I do.”

Now, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group, is taking up Abdullah’s cause, and trying to lobby weightlifting organizations to revise their rules in time for her to compete in a July national competition. CAIR officials are arguing that USA Weightlifting is in violation of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which forbids sports bodies from discriminating based on “race, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin.” Not allowing Abdullah to wear her hijab is discrimination, CAIR maintains.

The Lookout, 9 June 2011

Iran to file complaint over FIFA hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Iranian women's soccer team

Iran is to file a complaint against the FIFA official who banned the country’s women football team from playing in an Olympics qualifier match, over their hijab.

“We have already held talks with the president of the International Federation of Association Football about the participation of Iranian women in matches with full Islamic hijab,” said head of the Iranian Football Federation (IFF) Ali Kaffashian. “Unfortunately, however, I do not know why the official in charge of the matches refused to let our team play,” ISNA quoted the IFF chief as saying on Saturday. Therefore, we will file a complaint to FIFA against the official in charge of the games.”

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UCU conference to discuss motion defending students’ right to wear veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UCU logoStudents should have the right to wear religious attire, such as burkhas, in colleges and universities, lecturers will be told tomorrow.

Leaders of the University and College Union (UCU) will pledge their support for the right of people of all faiths “to wear the religious head-dress and other religious attire appropriate to their faiths”. The union argues that the move is essential to encourage participation in further and higher education among ethnic minority groups – particularly women.

Delegates will also debate an amendment condemning what it calls “the alarming precedent” of a UK college prohibiting students from wearing the veil in college. Burnley College in Lancashire took the decision last year on security grounds. In 2009, it had also refused a student permission to enrol at the college while she was wearing a veil.

The debate comes on the heels of the French government’s decision to ban the wearing of the veil in public – a move criticised by the union as evidence of increasing Islamophobia. Other countries, such as Austria, are said to be considering similar moves to France if the number of women wearing veils grows.

“Anybody should be free to wear what they choose to follow their beliefs,” said Alan Whitaker, president of the UCU. “That has been a principle of the union. We are a secular union but that doesn’t mean we’re anti-religion.

“We’re in favour of people’s freedom to practise any religion they choose, and to be able to follow the customs of that religion – and that includes what clothing they wear.”

Delegates will cite as further evidence of Islamophobia the Swiss referendum decision to forbid the construction of minarets on mosques.

A further amendment, tabled by lecturers at the London School of Economics, says that “an important principle of education is to combat superstition and prejudice”. The LSE lecturers stress that allowing people of all faiths to wear what they want would help to achieve this. The amendment adds: “People of all faiths, or of none, have the right to dress as they personally consider appropriate.”

Independent on Sunday, 29 May 2011

The UCU conference will also debate a motion from the union’s LGBT members standing committee which warns against rising Islamophobia, “deplores the recruitment of any LGBT people” to the English Defence League and calls for a united campaign “against the EDL, their actions and their message of hate”.

EDL plans confrontation with Muslim community in Tower Hamlets … with help from local Labour MP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following their protest against “Muslim paedophiles” in Blackpool next Saturday, the English Defence League have announced that their next demonstration will be in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which they describe as “the heartland of Islamic terrorism” (see here and here).

Comments about the Tower Hamlets protest on the EDL’s Facebook page have included a call to rip off Muslim women’s veils – from an individual currently on bail over charges arising from an attack on Kingston mosque – and even more explicit threats of violence such as this:

EDL threat to Tower Hamlets

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Belgium: senate gives green light to veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Belgium was set Wednesday to become the second European Union country to enforce a ban on public wearing of Islamic face veils, as its senate failed to raise objections against the provision passed last month by the lower chamber of parliament.

The Chamber of Deputies approved the so-called burqa ban law on April 28. The senate had 15 days to interfere with it, but declined to do so, the Belga news agency said, quoting sources from the Belgian Parliament.

Belgian lawmakers had already voted to ban Islamic face veils last year, but the law did not get into the statute books as parliament was dissolved in the wake of a government crisis fueled by a row between the country’s French and Dutch-speaking politicians.

“This time it should go through,” Belga wrote, indicating that the law is set to be enforced ten days after its publication in the country’s official journal.

The measure is supported by all political parties except French- and Dutch-speaking Greens, which either opposed it or abstained in last month’s chamber vote.

The law would punish anyone caught in public places with their face completely or partially covered –thus preventing their identification – with fines between 15 to 20 euros (21 to 35 dollars) and/or up to seven days’ imprisonment.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have criticized it, arguing that it “would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion” of affected women.

DPA, 25 May 2011

Swiss canton to hold referendum on veil ban?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A petition in Canton Ticino could force a referendum on prohibiting women from wearing burqas in public, a first for the country.

A local committee in Ticino, Switzerland’s Italian-speaking region, said it has collected 11,316 signatures, over a thousand more the required number to launch a referendum. Canton authorities will check the signatures over the next few days, reports say and could then call for a referendum.

According to local newspaper Corriere del Ticino, as well as banning burqas, niqabs and other Islamic headresses, the initiative also aims to ban the use of balaclavas and other headgear that disguise people’s faces. These are sometimes worn by people attending football matches in Switzerland.

If the referendum goes ahead, it will be the first time in Switzerland that citizens have been asked to express an opinion on burqas. A similar ban came into effect in France recently, causing a hot debate on personal and religious freedom in the country and beyond.

In 2009, the Swiss voted to ban the construction of minarets in a country, a decision that has sparked controversy in the Muslim world and in other European countries.

The Local, 20 May 2011

How the French veil ban is being implemented

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In France, one month after the start of the nation’s burka ban, women wearing face-covering garments are being forced to remove their veil in public to avoid police harassment.

Five women were immediately detained by police for wearing the burka on city streets as they attempted to attend a conference on the effects of the law. The organizer of the conference was forcibly removed after he tried to talk to one of the women, who had become ill during questioning.

The conference was organized by the multicultural association Don’t Touch My Constitution. The group has raised funds to help women pay the 150-euro fine the law calls for, but they say they haven’t spent one cent.

Proponents of the law say the ban protects the country from religious radicalism, as well as France’s principle of secularism, or laicite in French.

Many Muslims have complained that French media coverage consistently ignores the religious convictions of those who wear the burka. Instead, the women are portrayed as mere tools, with domineering men controlling their every move.

The law, which was roundly criticized by police organizations, may not have led to mass arrests, but Muslim groups say they must provide a voice for the many women who have refused to leave the house for fear of embarrassment.

People say the French government is applying the law carefully, but unevenly. It seems they’re largely ignoring the heavily Muslim suburbs, but it also seems that police can still make a big show when they feel it’s necessary.

Press TV, 11 May 2011

See also the New York Times which reports the French Interior Ministry as stating that police have stopped 46 women wearing face-veils in public, 27 of whom have been charged and will be fined about $215 or forced to take an official course on citizenship.