Belgian school terms begins amid protests over veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Antwerp school protestDozens of protesters sported party hats, colanders and other unlikely headgear in protests Tuesday at schools in the Belgian city of Antwerp where authorities have banned girls from wearing the Muslim veil.

Around 60 people turned up for the start of the school year outside the gates of the Athenee Royal of Antwerp school, where most students are Muslims, carrying banners calling for “freedom of choice,” television pictures showed.

Another 70 protesters assembled at the Hoboken secondary school in suburb of Antwerp, in the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium which also introduced a ban on Muslim veils on Tuesday.

The two schools targeted for the protests were following the lead of others throughout the country as the number of schools still allowing the veil decreases each year.

“This ban is against the freedom of religion and violates the right to an education,” for young Muslims, said Samira Azabar, one of the protest organisers.

After the two schools decided on the ban in June an imam in Antwerp called on “all Muslim parents not to send their children back to school” for the new academic year.

Athenee head mistress Karin Heremans said that so far a dozen students had stayed away from school.

She justified the ban by saying girls who had refused to wear the Muslim veil had been subjected to intimidation at a school where “the proportion of Muslims has increased from 50 percent to 80 percent in the last three years.”

Agence France-Presse, 3 September 2009

Scottish Labour accuses Scottish-Islamic Foundation of financial irregularities

Posted on by Eddie Truman

SIF

The right-wing blogosphere has been cock-a-hoop at news that the Scottish-Islamic Foundation “have been forced to repay” £128,000 to the Scottish Government for “an event that never took place”.

The news was covered by the Daily Mail and Express, peddled by Centre for Social Cohesion’s Douglas “Neoconservatism: why we need it” Murray and Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, and repeated by Harry’s Place.

The story is that SIF last year received £200,000 to organise IslamFest, a large event planned for this summer 2009 aimed at the public on Muslim culture, but which also had a Middle East trade expo as part of it. The original plans were to cost over £1m to hold, but there were difficulties in obtaining the remaining funding due to the economic crisis.

As a result, the plans were scaled back and pushed back. It has been split into two elements – Salaam Scotland and Etisal. The former is a four month festival of events taking place around Scotland from December this year, while the latter is the trade expo which will also take place this year.

The work is important given the level of Islamophobia in Scotland and the wider UK, and the project also has the potential to attract investment and jobs into Scotland – something you would have thought would be supported given the economic climate. The Scottish Government are still considering the new timetable.

Anyone with any knowledge of the voluntary sector knows that if a grant is given in a financial year, 08/09 in this case, and is underspent, the remainder is returned. This is not unusual. Perhaps what is unusual is SIF’s scrupulous approach to the money. SIF CEO Osama Saeed told the Express:

“Many in our position would simply have cobbled something together and spent the money. This would not have been good enough for the high standards we set ourselves”.

The full picture has not been reported anywhere. The event that “did not take place” claim is not the full story, and SIF’s critics know this.

If this was just a case of misrepresentation, that would be one thing. But SIF’s critics have had to add some spice to the story by claiming financial “irregularities”. The word has been repeated ad nauseam in quotation marks, but no one has been able to back it up.

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Muslim worshippers pelted with eggs near Epsom and Ewell mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man pelted Muslim worshippers at a mosque with eggs in a racist attack.

The assault occured during the Muslim festival of Ramadan as worshippers entered the Epsom and Ewell Islamic Society, situated on Hook Road. The incident, described by police as a racially aggravated assault, took place at about 11.15pm on Sunday evening.

Visitors had been attending evening prayers in the build up to Ramadan when several vehicles drove by and hurled eggs as men, woman and children left the mosque.

After a tip off from the local community a 20-year-old man, from Epsom, was arrested on Tuesday yesterday and he remains in custody where police said he is helping detectives with their enquiries.

Epsom and Ewell Neighbourhood Inspector Ailsa Quinlan said: “We will not tolerate this behaviour and we always treat any form of hate crime as a serious offence.

“Following the incident on Sunday evening we increased our police presence at the mosque which enabled us to act quickly and robustly in making this arrest.

“I would like to encourage members of the Muslim community who have suffered a hate crime to report it to us.”

This Is Local London, 2 September 2009

Fitzpatrick calls for ban on gender-segregated meetings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

London Muslim CentreGovernment Minister Jim Fitzpatrick has called for segregation to be outlawed in Britain. The controversial East London Labour MP, who hit the headlines last week after walking out of a Muslim wedding for being asked to sit apart from his wife, insists segregation of men and women outside places of worship should be against the law.

Mr Fitzpatrick, the MP for Poplar and Canning Town, told the BBC that he does not oppose segregation in mosques, but believes separating men and women in halls such as the London Muslim Centre and other public buildings was “unacceptable.”

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Young British Muslims angry with police and media

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Seen and Not HeardMany young British Muslims feel demonized by the police and the media and say they have come under pressure to prove their loyalty since the September 11 attacks and the 2005 London bombings, a study has found.

The report for the Policy Research Center, an Islamic think tank, was intended to give young Muslims their own voice to counter assumptions made by outsiders.

It said young Muslims had been portrayed in the media as a threat to society and often struggled to convince people that they can be both British and Muslim at the same time.

Public debate over immigration, nationalism and integration has left them feeling under attack, while Britain’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan has only increased the pressure. “As well as facing questions and challenges to their loyalty, young Muslims … are being pressed to define their identity in light of national and international events,” the report said.

Young Muslims are too often asked to prove that their religion is peaceful and they are law-abiding, the report said. “This is especially damaging when myths and stereotypes surmount accurate information, resulting in young British Muslims being portrayed as a threat to the wellbeing of the wider British communities,” it said.

Despite attempts by police chiefs to engage with the Muslim community, the report found many young British Muslims did not trust the police and felt harassed. The report blamed a dramatic rise in Muslims being stopped and searched in the street after the July 2005 suicide bombings, which killed 52 people in London.

Reuters, 31 August 2009

See also Policy Research Centre website

Update:  See Sughra Ahmed’s piece at Comment is Free, 1 September 2009

US Islamophobes’ heroine lied about seeing Muslim student sit during Pledge

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Heather LawrenceFervent patriots held Heather Lawrence up as a hero. When her story broke last week, bloggers and online commenters praised the 16-year-old junior and JROTC member at Springstead High School for confronting a Muslim student for not standing during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Lawrence, however, fabricated that part of the story, school officials say. “This girl lied,” Springstead principal Susan Duval said Monday. “I have confirmed with the homeroom teacher the young (Muslim) lady stood for the pledge.”

Lawrence said she was walking by another homeroom Wednesday morning when she saw a girl with the traditional Muslim head scarf sitting during the pledge. Later, Lawrence said she confronted the girl, told her she should stand during the pledge out of respect and, according to her own account and a school report, said, “Take that thing off your head and act like you’re proud to be an American.”

A teacher witnessed the confrontation and Lawrence was suspended for five days for violating the district’s policy against bullying and harassment. The suspension has since been reduced to three days.

After the incident, Heather Lawrence was asked by a teacher why she confronted the girl. “She began to rant that she was enlisting and was going to Iraq and that basically because the girl looks Middle Eastern, that makes her an enemy because all Iraqis are Middle Eastern,” according to the referral signed by assistant principal Stephen Crognale.

The story, reported by the Times and other local media Friday, went viral, prompting some praise for Lawrence for speaking her mind and boos for school officials for quelling her free-speech rights. Duval said the school has received calls from angry people who have “abused” her staff.

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Leyton scheme to empower young Muslim women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A project aimed at helping young Muslim girls to gain confidence and skills, including those who have suffered abuse and hostility because of wearing the headscarf, has been launched.

The Young Muslim Women Professionals Project was given a grant of nearly £500,000 from the Big Lottery fund and was set up after women came forward to describe the abuse they suffered. Aimed at girls and young women aged 10 to 25, the scheme will include mentoring projects, “skills for life” such as ICT and counselling training and advice on how to deal with abuse safely.

Project director Zahir Fatima said: “We’re helping young Muslim women to build confidence regardless of whether they wear the veil. It’s about giving them skills and empowering them to become more active in the community.”

Set up by the Leyton-based Kiran Project, which has traditionally supported Asian women and children suffering domestic violence and abuse, the scheme is set to run for three years.

Fiaz Akhtar, who works for Kiran as a project co-ordinator and wears a head scarf, said: “I’ve experienced it myself on two or three occasions. After 7/7, I was in my car with my daughter and a guy came up behind me. He came out of his car and started swearing and saying ‘get back to your country’. It came to the point where I was petrified.”

Mrs Akhtar also had a lit cigarette thrown at her and said many women have been spat at, verbally abused in the street and even had their veils pulled off in the years following 9/11 and 7/7. She said: “My clothes almost caught fire – luckily I was sitting forward. I cried a lot – it’s something that could have been harmful to me.”

She described how her 12-year-old daughter, who also wears the veil, had been verbally abused in Walthamstow market because of the way she was dressed. Mrs Akhtar added that a number of young women had come forward to say they had suffered similar problems and the project grew from there, as a way to rebuild their self-confidence.”

Waltham Forest Guardian, 28 August 2009