Security has been called in after tensions threatened to boil over a provocative mural to ban burqas at a Newtown workshop.
Following artist Sergio Redegalli’s painting opposing the Islamic face covering veils with the slogan “Say no to burqas”, security outside the premises has been called in after tensions threatened to boil over.
“It is alarming to find one self agreeing with Fred Nile, especially on gender issues. But feminists should fess up. The burqa belongs in cultures that still have bride-price. It is an antediluvian title deed, an all-enveloping, owned sexual identity.”
Elizabeth Farrelly in the Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2010
Muslim students and visitors have been banned from wearing veils in a controversial new crackdown on security at a leading sixth-form college. Staff posted a notice in the reception area advising anyone coming on site to “remove items of clothing which cover their face”. But the move has angered Muslim groups who say people should be allowed to wear what they like.
The ban is “an essential element for a safe environment” said Burnley College in Lancashire. However, the University of Central Lancashire, which operates out of the same campus, permits veils.
“There are human rights issues at stake here. People have the right and freedom to wear what they want,” said Abdul Hamid Qureshi, chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques. “It seems Burnley College has one policy on veils and the university has another and I just think to ban veils altogether is excessive. If security is an issue the person coming in a burka should show their face to the security guard at the college,” he added.
Labour councillor Wajid Khan said: “People should be able to wear what they want – this is the beautiful thing about our society, to be able to wear what you want. This choice and diversity is why our country is so great. We have this equality of opportunity and we have this real tolerance,” added Mr Khan, a course leader at the University of Central Lancashire.
In 2009, the same college sparked a row when Shawana Bilqes, 18, was banned from wearing a burka, a move she claimed forced her to abandon a HE Diploma course. “It is not possible to maintain essential full communication if the face of any student is not fully visible,” said the then principal John Smith.
See also the Daily Express which reports that “bosses at a leading sixth-form college were praised yesterday for their ‘commonsense approach’ in banning Islamic veils, including burkhas, in a security crackdown”. The two individuals quoted as supporting Burnley College’s decision are Tory MPs Philip Davies and Philip Hollobone.
Update: See “Call for Burnley College to rethink headwear ban”, BBC News, 24 September 2010
Italy’s anti-immigrant North League party has introduced a bill in the lower house of parliament seeking ban on burqa, the full body veil worn by Muslim women.
According to the legislation, wearing burqa will be punishable by a year in prison, fines of €150 to €300 for the wearer and €30,000 for anyone forcing a woman to don the face-covering Islamic garment. Anyone coercing a minor or a disabled woman into wearing a burqa will be eligible for a €60,000 fine. If a woman is wearing the burqa of her own volition, the €150-€300 fine can be reduced, if she agrees to do community service aimed at better integrating Muslim immigrants.
“This bill represents a step forward because we are not just facing a problem of public order, but – we believe – an offence to women’s dignity”, said Carolina Lussana, Northern League member of parliament, handing over the copy of the bill to reporters. “It is also a violation of the principle of equality between men and women enshrined in our constitution,” she said.
The bill is likely to draw criticism from many Muslim immigrants, but 73 percent of Italians believe the burqa should not be allowed to be worn in public places, according to a recent poll by Panel Data.
A Philadelphia-area security company violated federal law when it terminated a security officer for wearing a religious head scarf and threatened to terminate other Muslim employees if they wore religious garments while on duty, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it announced today.
France’s Senate has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public. The proposed measure was already backed by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, in July. The ban will come into force in six months’ time if it is not overturned by constitutional judges.
See also Guardian, 14 September 2010
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Monday that a majority of its 27 judges voted to set aside the court’s earlier ruling in the case.
A federal appeals court has ordered a new hearing for a Muslim woman who was made to remove her religiously mandated headscarf by Orange County deputies in a courthouse holding cell.
A three-judge panel of the court decided in May that deputies had not violated Souhair Khatib’s rights when they ordered her to remove the head scarf for security reasons.
The incident occurred after a judge revoked Khatib’s probation for a conviction on a misdemeanor charge.
At issue is whether a courthouse holding cell qualifies as a pretrial detention facility under a federal law that protects inmates’ religious practices.
The case is scheduled for rehearing in December.
The NSW Opposition says it will not support a Bill seeking to ban the wearing of burqas and other face veils in public, delivering a final blow to the hopes of its author, the conservative MP Fred Nile.
The Christian Democratic Party MP introduced the Bill in June, even though the same Bill was voted down by the NSW Upper House in May.
Two weeks ago NSW Premier Kristina Keneally announced that Labor MPs would not support the proposed legislation, giving it little chance of success. “Such a ban has no place in multicultural NSW,” she said.
Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell said today that the Coalition had also decided it would not back the burqa ban Bill. “We decided last week, the Liberal-National parties, that there shouldn’t be discrimination,” Mr O’Farrell told Macquarie Radio.
You might have thought that a feminist journalist would welcome the elevation of Caroline Lucas to the leadership of the Green Party and her election as the party’s first MP. But not Julie Bindel. In a piece of monumental ignorance published in Standpoint Magazine, Bindel writes:
“Lucas says she is a feminist. Yet she has shared a platform with those who believe that adulterous females should be stoned to death. In 2004, Lucas supported the International Network Assembly for the Protection of Hijab (Pro-Hijab), which was formed in response to proposed headscarf bans in France and parts of Germany. Its aim was to ‘dispel myths about the hijab’ to lobby to reverse bans already brought in and to prevent more ‘abuses of democracy’ being imposed. Lucas joined the former Respect MP George Galloway and London’s ex-mayor Ken Livingstone on the platform at the assembly’s publicly-funded City Hall launch.
“The guest of honour was Livingstone’s old friend Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, who has spoken in favour of female genital mutilation, wife-beating, the execution of homosexuals in Islamic states, the destruction of the Jewish people, the use of suicide bombs against innocent civilians and the blaming of rape victims who do not dress modestly.”
There is barely a word of this that is accurate. Neither Caroline Lucas nor George Galloway was on the platform at the Pro-Hijab launch in City Hall in July 2004, and there certainly were no speakers who believed that “adulterous females should be stoned to death”. As for Qaradawi he is opposed to genital mutilation and wife-beating, doesn’t believe that homosexuals should be executed, that the Jewish people should be detroyed or that suicide bombing against innocent civilians is justified, and he has never blamed rape victims for not dressing modestly.
But what can you expect from a writer who finds it reprehensible that “Lucas supports a boycott of Israeli goods”, and who has been applauded by fascists for promoting their racist myth about “Asian grooming”? Looks to me like Bindel is bidding to become the UK equivalent of Phyllis Chesler.
A student wearing the niqab has begun attending a teacher training course in Stockholm, more than one and a half years after another woman reported a school that would not allow her to wear the headscarf in class.
Employers and principals are still waiting for a guiding principle about the niqab in classrooms from the Equality Ombudsman (DO) following the woman’s notification last year, Dagens Nyheter (DN) reported on Monday.
The new student is studying at Stockholm University. “Almost no municipality or school that I know of allows the niqab,” Stockholm University lawyer and equality coordinator Christian Edling told the newspaper. “It would be easier if we had guidance.”
The DO explained that there is the delay in the case because it is not a priority and that it requires careful treatment due to the complexities involved.
“I think it is deplorable that there such a long time has passed since this girl notified the city of Stockholm and nothing has happened,” city school commissioner Lotta Edholm told DN.
Edholm has previously reported the DO to the parliamentary ombudsman for the slow process. The DO did not offer a timeframe on when it can present a decision on new guidelines.
“In general terms, I can say that one should try to find a pragmatic solution, but the right to education is deeply rooted in law,” George Svéd, director of DO’s education division, told DN.