Category Archives: Women

Belgium to debate ban on Islamic veils

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Belgium lawmakers are due to debate legislation that would ban full-face Islamic veils in public. If, as expected, they approve the draft law, Belgium would become the first European country to ban the wearing of the burka or niqab in public places. It comes a day after France announced its own plans to ban the garments.

However, Thursday afternoon’s vote is under threat from a political crisis that could see the collapse of the Belgian government. A Dutch-speaking party is threatening imminent resignation from the ruling coalition unless action is taken to resolve a long-standing dispute about power-sharing.

BBC News, 22 April 2010

Update:  See “Belgian government collapses after party quits coalition”, Guardian, 22 April 2010

Further update:  See Intissar Kherigi, “A Belgian face-veil ban would be senseless”, Comment is Free, 22 April 2010

Sarkozy to submit bill banning Islamic face veils

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sarkozy2French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered legislation that would ban women from wearing Islamic veils that fully cover the face and body in public places, the government said Wednesday.

It is Sarkozy’s first political action toward an outright ban, though he has repeatedly said such outfits oppress women and are not welcome in France, home to a firmly secular government.

Government spokesman Luc Chatel said after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the president decided the government should submit a bill to parliament in May on an overall ban on such veils “in all public places.”

That ups the stakes in Sarkozy’s push against veils such as the burqa and niqab and chador. Some in his own party have bristled at a full-out ban, and France’s highest administrative body has questioned whether it would be constitutional.

Associated Press, 21 April 2010

Montreal protest against ban on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bill 94 protestAbout 120 people turned up Saturday afternoon outside Montreal City Hall to express their opposition to Bill 94, saying the legislation reflects cultural xenophobia and has no place in Quebec society.

The legislation, which would predominantly affect women who wear the Islamic niqab or burka, would require public employees, education and health workers to have their faces uncovered at all times.

The law would also apply to anyone seeking government services. Saturday’s protest, organized by a group calling itself simply “Kill Bill 94,” lasted for about two hours and drew representatives from the South Asian Women’s Association, Jewish organizations and Montreal’s Anglican diocese.

Montreal Gazette, 17 April 2010

See also CTV News, 17 April 2010 and the Examiner, 18 April 2010

Spain – student banned from school for wearing hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Najwa MalhaA 16-year-old schoolgirl has been banned from classes in Spain after refusing to remove her Islamic headscarf, re-igniting the national debate over the hijab.

Najwa Malha, who was born is Spain to Moroccan immigrants, has been excluded from classes at the state-run Camilo Jose Cela School in the Madrid suburb of Pozuelo after being told that her hijab was in violation of school dress code.

The decision has sparked debate in Spain where there are no clear guidelines over the wearing of Islamic headdress in state schools. The enforcement of dress codes is left up to individual school boards but previous cases of exclusion have been overturned by the state with the argument that the constitutional right to an educational overrides the school’s right to determine its own policies.

“I feel totally discriminated against,” said Miss Malha, who said she began wearing the hijab two months ago as an expression of her religious belief. Her father, Mohamed, told Spanish newspaper El Pais that he had originally objected to his daughter wearing the hijab to school. “I asked her to reconsider […] because I figured it would cause her problems,” he said.

Last November, a Muslim lawyer was ejected from Spain’s national court, where she was defending a client, because she refused to remove her headscarf.

Daily Telegraph, 16 April 2010

Update:  See also Bikya Masr, 19 April 2010

Afghan women condemn European plans to ban veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A firm believer in women’s rights, the only thing Afghan lawmaker Shinkai Karokhail finds as appalling as being forced to wear a burqa is a law banning it.

Karokhail is one of many Afghan women who see a double standard in efforts by some European nations to outlaw face veils and burqas – a move they say restricts a Muslim woman’s choice in countries that otherwise make a fuss about personal rights.

“Democratic countries should not become dictatorships and Muslim women should not be deprived from all kinds of opportunities. It should be their choice,” said Karokhail. “Otherwise, what is the difference between forcing women to wear a burqa and forcing them not to? It is discrimination.”

Even one of Afghanistan’s most outspoken and controversial women, former lawmaker Malalai Joya, is a staunch opponent of efforts to ban burqas or tight headscarves called hijabs.

“As much as I am against imposing the hijab on women, I am also against its total ban. It should be regarded a personal matter of every human being and it should be up to women if they prefer to wear it or not,” she told Reuters by email. “It is against the very basic element of democracy to restrict a human being from wearing the clothes of his/her choice.”

Reuters, 16 April 2010

Apology to young Muslim woman instructed to remove headscarf for driver’s licence photo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Getting her driver’s license should have been an exciting rite of passage for a Sussex County teenager, her mother said.

But when Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles workers told the 16-year-old girl to remove her Muslim headscarf – despite an agency policy allowing her to wear it in her license picture – the experience ended in tears and embarrassment.

“It’s a crying shame that a piece of fabric on her head could cause such an uproar,” said the mother, who asked not to be identified to avoid further public attention.

The girl eventually left the DMV with a driver’s license, she said, but the picture showed her visibly upset and crying.

DMV Director Jennifer Cohan said the agency will remind its workers of its policy on religious and cultural issues. Muslim women may wear headscarves that do not cover their faces for their photos, she said.

“We called her and apologized profusely,” Cohan said. “This could have been handled with a little more sensitivity on our part.”

News Journal, 14 April 2010

Student files complaint, claims hijab cost her fast-food job

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Troy, Michigan — A 19-year-old college student has filed a federal complaint against the McDonald’s on Crooks Road after she says she was turned down for a job at the restaurant for wearing a hijab, a religious head scarf.

Nasihah Barlaskar said she went to a job interview on March 27 and was surprised when a white female supervisor asked if she intended to wear “that thing” at work, referring to the hijab.

“I said, ‘Yes I do. It’s part of my religion’,” Barlaskar said. “She said I would not be able to wear it (the hijab) while working. I told her I could wear the (McDonald’s) cap over my hijab.”

Barlaskar said she was surprised by the treatment from the supervisor since she has friends who work at other local fast-food restaurants including McDonald’s that allow female employees to wear hijabs.

Barlaskar said she needs to work to help pay for college expenses and to help her family since her father lost his cab driving job last fall. But Barlaskar found out she didn’t get the job when she called the supervisor three days later.

She suspects she didn’t get it because of her decision to wear the hijab at work. “She told me she decided to go with someone else but I think I was discriminated against because of the hijab,” Barlaskar said.

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission complaint was filed today by the Michigan Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Barlaskar’s behalf.

“We urge McDonald’s to take immediate action to bring its hiring policies into compliance with long-established legal guidelines on reasonable religious accommodation in the workplace,” said Dawud Walid, CAIR-Michigan’s executive director.

Detroit News, 13 April 2010

See also “EEOC complaint filed against Mich. McDonald’s over hijab”, CAIR news release, 13 April 2010

CAIR point out that this is not the first time that McDonald’s has been accused of discriminating against women wearing hijab.

Quebec Muslim woman ordered to unveil or leave French course

Posted on by Bob Pitt

One morning recently, a young Muslim woman whose face was hidden by a religious covering was pulled out of her government French class near Montreal and told to unveil or leave the course.

“Aisha,” a 25-year-old permanent resident from India, is the second such case to come to light in Quebec. Last month, the same ultimatum was given to Naema Ahmed, an Egyptian-born woman whose case sparked an uproar and led to landmark provincial legislation against religious face veils.

But, while Ms. Ahmed was portrayed in media accounts as difficult to accommodate, Aisha, as she has asked to be called to shield her identity, didn’t make waves.

According to former classmates and officials at the suburban centre she attended, the young woman was a model student who placed no demands on others and even teamed up with male students for class assignments.

“She was an excellent student. I saw in this woman a will to integrate,” said Mustapha Kachani, executive director of the Centre d’intégration multi-services de l’Ouest de l’Île.

The Immigration Department’s assertion that her veil, or niqab, posed a problem for “pedagogical” reasons was unfounded, Mr. Kachani said.

“She demonstrated great diligence in the course, in addition to actively participating in class, all the while articulating very well,” he wrote in a letter to Immigration Department officials and copied to Quebec Immigration Minister Yolande James. “The decision upset the whole class.”

Globe and Mail, 11 April 2010

Update:  See also Montreal Gazette, 12 April 2010

Islamophobes – they can dish it out but they can’t take it

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at his Gauche blog, City University lecturer and former Tribune editor Paul Anderson recounts how he shouted and swore at journalists from the university’s student paper the Inquirer when they approached him over a story about his fellow lecturer Rosie Waterhouse, who had called for a ban on the niqab at the university.

What provoked Anderson’s fit of apoplexy was that “the key quote the Inquirer team had for their story, from the president of the student Islamic Society at City, Saleh Patel, was blatantly abusive a rsity.

Faced with Anderson’s ire, and no doubt fearful of future retribution, the Inquirer didn’t use the quote from Saleh Patel. So much for freedom of expression, eh?

This is par for the course with Islamophobes. Anderson has no objection to his friend Waterhouse describing the wearing of the niqab by students as “offensive and threatening” (what confidence can such students have that they will be welcomed at City University’s Department of Journalism?). And he thinks he has the right to accuse the City University Islamic Society of having “relentlessly pushed a separatist and intolerant version of Islam, repeatedly promoting apologists for terrorist violence and the most reactionary social attitudes”.

But Anderson furiously rejects the right of his opponents to criticise him harshly in return.

FIFA ban on hijab rejected by Australian clubs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Iranian girls footballFootball clubs fear that a decision by the sport’s world governing body to ban Islamic head scarves will trickle down to the local level. The Iran girls’ football team has been kicked out of the Youth Olympic Games because FIFA ruled that wearing a hijab was not in accordance with laws of the game relating to on-field equipment.

The president of Lakemba Sport and Recreation Club, Jamal Rifi, said:

“It’s extremely disappointing, especially because we’re trying to encourage local females to play sport, head scarf or no head scarf. It’s a smack in the face for all the hard work we have been doing. It’s not an occupational hazard and it’s definitely not a sporting hazard. The number of Muslim girls playing soccer at an elite level is already very few. To restrict these few females achieving at a high level, it’s very demoralising.”

The number of girls’ football teams in the club has risen from one to five in the past four years, which Dr Rifi said was a direct result of opening the sport up to players “from all religions, races and cultures”. Two girls playing at state level had the potential to represent Australia, he said.

“It is going to trickle down and will give justification to local associations to use that excuse at the grassroots level.”

FIFA’s rules state players may not wear jewellery or dangerous headgear such as hair clips, and that “basic compulsory equipment must not have any political, religious or personal statements”. Football Federation Australia’s and Football NSW’s interpretation of the rules allow hijabs to be worn if they are made from a special elastic material.

The chief executive of Blacktown and District Soccer Football Association, Jack Taylor, said the ruling was ”bullshit”. He hoped Football NSW and the FFA would take little notice of it. “Our numbers are growing because of the way we’ve made all women welcome. To say, ‘Sorry, you can’t play football because you’re wearing a hijab,’ is really discriminatory.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 7 April 2010