Two German states reject hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The legislatures in two German states have turned down proposals by the opposition Christian Democratic Party to ban Muslim school teachers from wearing hijab. The parliament of Nordrhein-Westfalen, western Germany, rejected the party’s  request as having no legal merit.

The Christian Democratic Party claimed that hijab places woman at a lower status and was a political symbol not entrenched in the Muslims’ holy book, the Noble Qur’an. Thomas Kufen, the party’s immigration affairs officer, alleged that disputes could emerge in schools over the issue of hijab and that a legislation was needed. The party, yet, said nuns should be exempted for any ban on religious dress codes.

The Socialist and the Green parties, the ruling coalition, as well as the Free Democratic Party had opposed the proposals. They particularly took issue at the Christian Democratic Party’s attempt to exempt nuns’ wear from the ban as a violation of the constitution which demands equal treatment for citizens irrespective of their religious affiliations.

Islam Online, 24 March 2005

Intolerant ban dressed up as secular ruling

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Intolerant ban dressed up as secular ruling

By Yasmin Qureshi

Morning Star, 23 March 2005

It has now been just over one year since the introduction of a new law in France forbidding the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in French state schools.

This law has been of considerable concern to London’s Asian communities in particular.

Sikh and Muslim groups in Britain asked the mayor of London to take the issue up and look into the impact on community relations across Europe of the so-called “headscarf ban.”

I visited Paris last week on the mayor’s behalf, meeting, among others, representatives of Muslim organisation le Collectif des Musulmans de France, as well as the French civil rights group the Ligue des droits de l’Homme and representatives of the Sikh community – including the two Sikh boys who have been excluded from their school as a direct result of the law .

There is a widely held view among those opposed to the ban that it came at a time when the French government needed to divert from the country’s economic problems.

As an attempt to divert attention from high unemployment and budget cuts it was very successful, tapping into long-held French secular political traditions.

The overwhelming focus of the debate about the new law – which is why it has become known as the “headscarf ban” – was the Muslim community.

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Islam and Democracy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Perhaps the Muslim world has to go through a new Islamist phase as the result of democratic change – whether Washington likes it or not, Lindsey Hilsum argues.

New Statesman, 21 March 2005

This is evidently not a view that finds favour with the NS editor, who has added the sarcastic headline “Lindsey Hilsum predicts good times for Arab clerics”. But it’s what people like John Esposito and Noah Feldman have been saying for years – that if the citizens of majority Muslim countries are allowed a democratic choice, they will often vote for Islamists.

Federal court upholds Harkat’s detention

Posted on by Bob Pitt

OTTAWA — A Federal Court judge has upheld the use of a security certificate against Mohamed Harkat, who has been held in jail in Ottawa for more than two years after being accused of being a terrorist.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says the Algerian-born man is a member of al-Qaeda who trained in Afghanistan, then entered Canada as a sleeper agent. Mohamed Harkat has been jailed for more than two years under a security certificate.

On Tuesday, Federal Court Justice Eleanor Dawson ruled that the grounds for the certificate are reasonable, opening the way to Harkat’s deportation to Algeria. She rejected Harkat’s constitutional argument that security certificates – which let authorities arrest and hold people they suspect of posing a threat to national security – violate fundamental justice.

CBC news report, 22 March 2005

Countering Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Islamophobes are aggressively organizing propaganda that portrays Islam as a foreign religion that came with the backward, violent Arabs, who oppress women and deny them their rights of education, driving, working, or even leaving their homes. This completely distorted image is ingrained in the minds of the majority of the American public as a result of organized efforts by bigoted figures.”

Salwa Rashad on Islamophobia in the USA.

Islam Online, 25 March 2005

In defence of tyranny

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Outrage! proposes that Iraq should remain under foreign occupation for some time to come, on the grounds that “a hasty withdrawal could pave the way for the seizure of power by Islamic fundamentalists”:

Outrage! press release, 20 March 2005

Daniel Pipes agrees that “a too-quick removal of tyranny unleashes Islamist ideologues and opens their way to power”:

Front Page Magazine, 8 March 2005

Faith hate attack on Muslim graves

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The UK’s Islamic community was yesterday horrified to learn that 40 Muslim graves in a London cemetery had been desecrated in a faith hate attack thought to have been sparked by the Madrid bombings.

Headstones were smashed and pictures removed from the graves in Charlton cemetery in the south-east of the city.

Police believe the vandals struck between 4pm on Wednesday and 8am yesterday and are treating the desecration as a crime motivated by religious hatred.

Guardian, 19 March 2005