Woman banned from college for wearing veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim student has been banned from enrolling at a college because she refused to remove her burkha [sic – they presumably mean niqab]. Shawana Bilqes, 18, wanted to wear the garment – which covers her body and face, leaving only her eyes visible – during lessons. But staff at Burnley College refused to enrol her, claiming the burkha was a barrier to “safety and communication”. In a strongly worded statement, the college said “unimpeded” face to face contact between teachers and students was vital.

Miss Bilqes, who wanted to study an access course for a diploma, has now been forced to abandon her plans and is looking elsewhere to complete her studies.

Yesterday she said: “It is my choice to wear the veil. I live around the corner from the college in an area where there are so many practising Muslims. I tried to compromise but they wouldn’t. The college sent me a letter to say I could continue with my course if I stopped wearing the veil. We are in the 21st century and we get people from all walks of life. I’m in the police cadets as well and yet it’s not a problem wearing the veil there.”

Daily Mail, 24 October 2009

See also Burnley Express, 21 October 2009

Muslim women wearing headscarves subjected to daily abuse in Malmö

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shoving, spitting, and ethnic slurs are a daily fact of life facing women bearing headscarves in Malmö, according to a new report.

The study, entitled Hemma och främmande i staden – kvinnor med slöja berättar (“At home and estranged in the city: tales of women with headscarves”) and published by the University of Malmö, examines the lives of 19 Malmö women who choose to wear headscarves.

The report is a compilation of stories detailing harassment and offensive remarks, such as a female cyclist in her fifties who slowed down and screamed “Muslim cunt” before pedaling off.

But the tales also relate how veiled women often try to avoid confrontation. They women included in the study remain stoic in the face of critical stares, avoid certain parts of the city, try to be overly friendly, or strike up conversations in which they attempt to explain the significance of their headscarves.

“Some see it as a sort of learning process. Almost like ‘if I tell you how it works then you don’t need to be afraid of me’,” said Carina Listerborn, a researcher with the Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, told the TT news agency.

The report is part of a larger project about urban violence being carried out in cooperation with Lund and Stockholm universities.

Listerborn said that the stories of the veiled women can help broaden the definition of violence, and that it doesn’t have to be restricted to fighting, kicking, and stabbings on city streets and public squares.

“There are other kinds of violence which also deserve to be highlighted,” she said.

The Local, 21 October 2009

Download the study here.

Douglas Murray savages Ed Husain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Last week the Guardian revealed that Ed Husain, co-director of the government-funded thinktank the Quilliam Foundation (QF), believes that spying on British Muslims who are ‘not committing terrorist offences’ is ‘good and right’. He has expressed some pretty extreme views in the past, but this is beyond anything that anyone who believes in liberal democracy could extol….

“QF subsequently issued a press release and its other director, Maajid Nawaz, wrote an article of strange double-speak proclaiming that QF does not in fact support ‘mass spying’ nor ‘a police state’. Well here is how his co-director described the Prevent strategy that funds QF. ‘A government initiative backed by millions of pounds. It’s got access to tens of thousands of people’s emails, phone numbers, etc etc. Isn’t the government going to use it? Of course it is. And it should use it.’

“These statements strike me as quite appallingly illiberal: wrong in principle because the police should not investigate innocent people and very obviously damaging in practice. However, Nawaz has clearly decided that the best way to deal with the authoritarian pronouncements of his co-director is to divert attention under the belief that contradiction is better than retraction….

“Husain said that ‘It would be morally wrong of a taxpayer-funded programme designed to prevent terrorism if it was not designed to gather intelligence in order to stop that terrorism from happening.’… Unless a crime has been committed or is about to be committed there is no reason why any innocent person should be reported to the police. Husain, in particular, ought to know the difference between a police state – especially since his co-director was until recently in such a state’s prisons – and a developed liberal democracy….

“QF is currently cosying up to the Conservative party to ensure its role under the next government. It would not be a bad thing if that party’s first cost-cutting exercise was to stop funding an organisation that has come to represent the toxic juncture at which intense personal ambition and government propaganda meet.”

Douglas Murray at Comment is Free, 23 October 2009

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‘Jack Straw started all this’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Three years ago this month Jack Straw argued his case for urging Muslim women who attend his MP’s surgery to remove their niqab. He said that he wanted to start a debate. In this, at least, he was successful.

“The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy said ‘the veil is an invitation to rape’; the Daily Mail columnist Allison Pearson said women who wear ‘nose bags on their faces … have no place on British streets’; the then shadow home secretary David Davis argued that Muslims were encouraging voluntary apartheid.

“And 16-year-old Daniel Coine insisted he felt threatened: ‘I’d go further than Jack Straw and say they should all take off their veils. You need to see people face to face. It’s weird not knowing who it is you’re passing in the street, specially late at night when someone might jump you.’

“And so Muslim women passed, in the public imagination, from being actually among the group most likely to be racially attacked to ostensibly being a primary cause of social strife – roaming the land in search of white teenagers to physically harass.”

Gary Younge in the Guardian, 22 October 2009

Sunday Express defends ‘Britishness’ against the Muslim hordes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Morris dancers“If global warming is happening fast, the transformation of Britain into a foreign land is occurring more alarmingly swiftly still. Last week the Office for National Statistics revealed that, since 2002, approximately 515 migrants have been arriving here every single day….

“Old cinemas that are not carpet warehouses are overflow mosques…. People bob past in national costume – the women trussed up in black parachutes, to show they are men’s possessions, and the men themselves more heavily bearded than the holy warriors of the Khyber Pass…. It’s like being abroad.

“Instead of multiculturalism leading to acceptance of diversity, the liberal illusion has fostered intolerance and self-righteousness, particularly among younger Muslims who have no sense of Britishness and cling to their religious identity instead.

“So devout have the checkout staff at branches of Sainsbury’s become that they are refusing to handle customers’ beer and wine, as drink is offensive to Allah. Trainee doctors, too, are declining to attend lectures on liver diseases as they are ‘so opposed to the consumption of alcohol they don’t want to learn anything about it’, according to a spokesman at the British Medical Association. They also boycott courses on sexually transmitted ailments and won’t examine ‘patients of a particular gender’ – that is, women. Boots allow Muslim pharmacists not to dispense the Pill ‘for ethical reasons’….

“While not in the same league as blowing up Tube trains, there is still the same philosophy behind flinching from condoms and Special Brew – such goods are the mark of the Infidel….

“Why do we always cave in? The managers at Sainsbury’s and Boots and the nervous medical authorities? Why have our civilised standards and sense of moderation vanished? … We resisted the Nazis in 1940, after Dunkirk. We wouldn’t now. Today’s politicians with their egalitarian humbug would let everybody in, regardless of the fact that we have far too large a population for a tiny island – with the consequent pollution, crime and the destruction of the landscape for cheap housing estates…..

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Philadelphia university allows Wilders to preach hate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Temple UniversityAmid tight security and a large turnout of protesters, Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders told an assembly of Temple University students that Europe and America must fight an ongoing “stealth jihad” that threatens democracy and free speech.

“Where Islam sets roots, freedom dies,” Geert Wilders told the students during his 30-minute address organized by a new student group called Temple University Purpose and funded by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

If the spread of Islam continues unabated in the Western world, “you might at the end of the day lose your Constitution,” he told the assembly. “Wake up, defend your freedom.” He also touched on common themes in his speeches, including calling for an end to Muslim immigration and referring to the Muslim holy book, the Quran, as “an evil book” that promotes violence and intolerance.

A question-and-answer session was cut short after the tone of the event began to turn nasty, when some in the crowd of several hundred students began shouting jeers. Wilders’ security detail quickly ushered him from the room.

Before his remarks at Temple, a public university serving about 34,000 students, Wilders showed his 15-minute anti-Islam film, “Fitna,” which juxtaposes passages from the suras, or chapters, of the Quran with images of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, beheadings, shootings and speeches from clerics advocating violence against non-Muslims.

Temple officials issued a statement saying the university “is a community of scholars in which freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression are valued. We respect the right of our student organizations to invite people who express a wide variety of views and ideas.”

Fox News, 21 October 2009

See also the Philadelphia Daily News which reports:

Before the speech, held in Anderson Hall, more than 50 protesters had denounced the appearance of Wilders at the school. Members of All Sides, an organization that seeks to promote peace between Israel and Palestinians, held pink pom-poms and shouted, “Hey Hey, HO, HO, this racist bull—-‘s got to go.” Standing next to them with signs decrying Wilders’ views were members of the Student Senate, Democratic Socialists and the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance.

“Wilders speaks out about free speech while at the same time banning the Quran,” said Megan Chialastri, vice president of All Sides. “Banned books are not free speech and there is no way around that,” Chialastri said. “This is hate speech at its core,” said Monira Gamal-Eldin, president of the Muslim Students Association.

And over at Jihad Watch Robert Spencer reports the protest under the headline “Heavily indoctrinated student thugs shout down Wilders at Temple University”.

Temple Uni protest against Wilders

US Airways pays damages to ‘flying imams’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Flying imamsUS Airways has agreed to pay “undisclosed damages” to six imams it kicked off a flight in 2006 because of alleged suspicious activity, a prominent rights group said Tuesday.

The men were removed from a Minneapolis to Phoenix flight on November 20 and questioned for five hours, sparking a protracted legal battle between the six and the airline, airport authority, US Airways, the crew and several passengers.

Four of the religious leaders prayed in the airport before boarding the flight, apparently prompting suspicions on the part of staff and passengers. In a statement, the imams said they were guilty only of performing “normal evening prayers.” After questioning US Airways refused to allow them to take another flight home.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) hailed the settlement as “victory for justice and civil rights.”

AFP, 20 October 2009

See also CAIR press release, 20 October 2009

Progress apologises to Sir Iqbal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: Correction and Apology

On the 21st August 2009 Progress published an article titled “It’s time to end the cultural appeasement“. This article suggested that Sir Iqbal Sacranie had never been elected to “anything, not even a parish council”. Sir Iqbal has contacted us through his lawyers, Carter-Ruck, and asked us to point out that in fact he:

“was elected as the founding Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), when it was established in 1997. He was re-elected to the role twice in 2002 and 2003 by the 60 or so elected members making up the Central Working Committee. Under the MCB’s constitution, only elected members of the Central Working Committee can assume the role of Secretary General, so our client had first to be elected to this committee by the General Assembly (consisting of delegates from all the affiliates of the MCB, which is in the region of 500 national, regional and local bodies).

“Sir Iqbal has also been elected to various other positions. By way of example only, he was elected to his position as Chairman of Muslim Aid in 2008, he was elected to the position of Chair of the Executive Committee of Memon Association UK, he was elected to the position of Deputy President of World Memon Organisation, and he was elected to his position as Chair of the Management Committee of Balham Mosque and Tooting Islamic Centre.”

We have amended the article, and would like to apologise to Sir Iqbal Sacranie for the offence caused.

Progress Online, 21 October 2009

Groom at centre of Fitzpatrick wedding row joins Respect

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Groom joins RespectThe groom at the centre of the storm over Muslim weddings, Bodrul Islam, spoke out about his anger at MP Jim Fitzpatrick.

“He likened my wedding to the racial segregation, the apartheid, of the Deep South. I am disgusted at this degenerate politics and these insults,” said Mr Islam. “I am announcing today that I am joining the Respect Party. It is the only party standing up against racism and prejudice. And I am pledging my support for George Galloway as he seeks to replace Jim Fitzpatrick as the MP for Poplar and Limehouse.”

Mr Islam continued, “Neither I nor my wife are particularly traditional in our attitudes but we wanted to show respect to our elders and our parents who expect that men and women should be separated in the wedding ceremony. We did everything we could to accommodate Mr Fitzpatrick when we heard he had left the wedding and we were given to understand he was not upset. Imagine our dismay when days later he issued a condemnatory press release and followed it up with a press conference saying he wanted to outlaw what he likes to call segregation at weddings”.

George Galloway and Councillor Abjol Miah welcomed Mr Islam to the party, George thanked him for his pledge of support and Councillor Miah invited him to put himself forward as a candidate for Respect in the forthcoming council elections.

George Galloway went on to attack Fitzpatrick for dangerously pandering to prejudice. “Fitzpatrick is fanning the flames of hate, as the Advertiser correctly described it. He says he wants to outlaw ‘forced’ segregation. But no-one is forcing anyone to go to a wedding. The law he proposes would in fact make weddings where the sexes are separated illegal and would also probably lead to many other events being made illegal, such as women only swimming. The proposal is both dangerous and absurd.”

Asian Image, 21 October 2009

See also Respect news report, 20 October 2009