“A religion of separation is, arguably, the Islamic vision that dominates Dewsbury”, claims Andrew Norfolk.
Ban It! says the Express
Pressure was mounting last night for veils to be banned in Britain – just as they are in some Muslim countries. And rebels plotting fresh court protests were given a blunt warning by lawmakers: “Carry on, and we will bar you.”
The threat came amid a public outcry over the costs being racked up by teaching assistant Aishah Azmi as her lawyers, funded by taxpayers, continued their fight for her right to wear a veil in class. Daily Express readers responded in massive numbers to a poll on the crisis, with 99 per cent calling for the veil to be banned in schools, increasing pressure on the Government to act.
A ban would see Britain following many of its European neighbours, along with predominantly Muslim countries like Turkey and Tunisia in outlawing traditional Islamic headscarves in public schools and buildings.
Tory MP David Davies urged the Government to examine what other countries had done to discourage or outlaw the wearing of the full veil in public. “We should give it serious consideration too. It’s been banned in many countries, including Muslim. The time may have come for us to consider the same thing,” said the MP for Monmouth. “Tony Blair was right to say that it is a mark of separation. And what worries me is that it’s a way of subjugating women.”
Labour MP Ann Cryer, whose constituency in Keighley, West Yorkshire, has a large Muslim population, said she feared the high-profile Azmi case could spark a welter of copycat legal action by militants. And if that happened, she warned, legislation may be needed to enshrine in law a ban on veils being worn in classrooms and other civic buildings – which could mean on-the-spot fines and the withdrawal of state benefits.
Mrs Cryer said it was “totally unacceptable” to wear a full veil in front of young children and said an outright ban would be needed if people kept “pushing the boundaries” over the issue.
Ruth Kelly’s lies about ‘extremist Muslim hotspots’
Ruth Kelly, New Labour’s communities secretary, told a meeting of council leaders and police chiefs last week that she wants them to target Muslim “hotspots” – schools, universities, mosques and colleges which are supposedly centres of extremism.
This followed her recent comments that there needs to be a “fundamental rebalancing” of relationships with Muslim organisations which, she argues, are not doing enough to tackle extremism.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) wrote to Kelly to complain that there had been a “drip-feed of ministerial statements stigmatising an entire community”. Kelly responded with an open letter to the MCB suggesting that they are “passive in tackling extremism and yet expect government support”.
Rania Khan [pictured], a Respect councillor in Tower Hamlets, told Socialist Worker, “Ruth Kelly’s comments about ‘Muslim hotspots’ are ridiculous and divisive. This is the latest stage in an increasing witch-hunt of Muslims. This scapegoating by the government is increasing racism. Speaking as a Muslim, I find it frightening.
“This is not how to tackle terrorism. Talking about targeting mosques and colleges is an appalling attack on our civil liberties. Just about every report into terrorism show that it is Britain’s foreign policy that is the main cause of terrorism. The only way to solve this would be to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Right-wing press rails against Aishah Azmi
Aishah Azmi seems determined to pursue her warped agenda against the Church of England school that employs her all the way to the European Court – and the taxpayer will have to foot the legal bills.
Is it too much to hope that moderate Muslims will see what really lurks beneath this woman’s veil: not a victim with a genuine grievance but a politically motivated extremist who is doing terrible damage to their standing in the eyes of the long-suffering British public?
Editorial in the Daily Express, 20 October 2006
The bridge of her nose was all that could be seen of bolshie classroom assistant Aishah Azmi. Yet she was handed £1,100 of our money for refusing to remove her veil in school. She then had the gall to lecture US on integration.
What a ludicrous travesty of justice and common sense.
Why was this troublemaker prepared to remove the veil in order to get her job – but not after? How did the tribunal conclude she was a victim when she was the one who moved the goalposts? What message does this damaging ruling send to moderate Muslims who staunchly oppose the veil?
And how on earth could the panel be sure it was really her behind the black shroud covering her from top to toe?
Editorial in the Sun, 20 October 2006
The cult of victimhood has a new heroine. Aishah Azmi, the classroom assistant who insisted on wearing her niqab when in the presence of men (though not, apparently, when she was interviewed by a man for the job) has been awarded £1,100 for “injury to her feelings”.
Kirklees council had had the temerity to tell her to remove the veil when teaching because pupils said they found it hard to understand her. Mercifully, her claims of religious discrimination and harassment were thrown out. Yet that is unlikely to prevent Miss Azmi and her “supporters” proclaiming this as some sort of victory in an undeclared Holy War.
It is nothing of the sort. The wearing of a veil is a political and cultural statement, not a religious one, and the sooner this is more widely recognised, the less likely it will be that we have a repeat of this nonsense.
Editorial in Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2006
Muslims can never conform to ‘our’ ways
“Ministers appear whimsically to be shifting from the multi-cultural society towards an integrated one. They are whistling in the dark if they think that will play well with the followers of Islam in our midst. Muslims are rooted in their faith and it governs the way they live. It is the only faith on Earth that persuades its followers to seek political power and impose a law – sharia – which shapes everyone’s style of life…. It is vain to say: ‘Well, if they come here, they must conform with British society and its easy ways’. Muslims will not do that. Their religion forbids it.”
Bill Deedes in the Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2006
United States stops entry of British Muslim leader
The United States barred a British Muslim leader from flying to New York from London on Thursday morning, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said.
The department’s Customs and Border Protection section would not elaborate on why Kamal Helbawy, 67, a founding member of the Muslim Association of Britain, was told by airline staff to get off his flight shortly before it was due to leave London.
“The individual was inadmissible to enter the U.S.,” said spokeswoman Kelly Klundt. “I can’t speak specifically to this case as to why he was inadmissible.”
Helbawy was due to speak on a panel on the Muslim Brotherhood, organized by the Center on Law and Security, an independent think tank based at New York University.
Karen Greenberg, the executive director of the center, said Helbawy did not know why he had been stopped from traveling to the United States. ”According to him they didn’t tell him,” she said. ”What they told him was that basically he would have to go to the American Embassy first before he could come here.”
‘Save Dudley from Islam’, BNP urges
“Islam is a belief system that has a place amongst sand dwelling barbarians who lived over a thousand years ago but not in the twenty first century in Western Europe, in Britain and in England.”
The British National Party protests against a proposed new mosque in Dudley.
Muslim student arrested for doing university project
A 20 year old Muslim student was arrested under Britain’s terrorism law for taking photographs in east London for his university project before being released without charge. Kamran Tariq said he was detained last week while wandering amongst other tourists, hoping to gain inspiration to complete an assignment for his architecture course.
“I was singled out for being a young Pakistani Muslim and I was humiliated,” said Tariq, who is in his final year at the capital’s Greenwich University. He said he was arrested by a troop of nine officers, bungled into a police car, strip-searched and questioned for hours on suspicion of terrorism. He said he was also fingerprinted and required to provide a DNA sample.
“I cannot put into words what I felt. I was confused, angry, upset and astounded that this was happening to me. I’ve never so much as had a parking ticket, let alone had any other dealings with criminal activity or the police,” the student said. “I was made to feel small and treated like a criminal – all for a piece of university coursework,” he said in a statement obtained by IRNA. Tariq believes he was victimised because he was a Muslim. “Other students have been taking photographs of the area and they have not had any problems,” he said.
The local police confirmed that he was arrested on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack and was released without charge the same day without further action to be taken. “This was an isolated incident and our officers took the action they deemed to be appropriate,” a police spokesman was quoted saying by PA News.
Warmongers play race card
Britain is facing a sustained attempt to whip up full-blooded racism. Each day government ministers are clamouring to appear on camera denouncing Muslims and demanding their neighbours and teachers spy on them.
Across the country communities are living in fear. From bitter experience they know that racist speeches by politicians quickly translate into murderous racist violence on the streets. Listen to what befell Hina’naz Ahmed, a student at Wolverhampton University, last week:
“As I was walking past a bus stop I was surrounded by about five youths, one of them a girl. They stood and waited for me then followed me down the street shouting abuse, telling me to take off my veil.
“They then repeatedly said that Straw has made it illegal so I had to take it off. They shouted ‘Jack Straw’ repeatedly. I think Straw has made racists think it’s OK to abuse people like me.”
‘Muslim veil shouldn’t be worn in West’
“Speaking as an American: no Sharia law, no veils. If you’re here, be American. You don’t have to conform. You just have to give up the urge to be separate and apart and unwilling to assimilate like the rest of us.”
US TV talkshow host John Gibson adds his ten cents to the veil debate.