Religious coercion threatens Tunisian women

A number of Tunisian women feel forced to adopt religious practices in attire and behaviour. Experts, however, question the legality and Islamic authenticity of the phenomena.

By Jamel Arfaoui for Magharebia in Tunis – 07/01/11 (thanks to the RoP)

• Fitzgerald: Tunisia and the Monitoring of Islam: Tunisian police are stopping women on the streets and asking them to take off their headscarves and to sign a pledge that they will not wear a scarf again. A 1981 Tunisian law prohibits Islamic attire in schools or government offices.

Rima, a student, breathed a sigh of relief when her mother allowed her to remove the hijab.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for six months,” she says, adding that the experience felt like “long decades”. “My mother forced me to abandon what she considered to be indecent clothes when I returned home at a late hour after attending a friend’s birthday party.”

Like many other Tunisian girls and married women, she was made to obey her family, while facing alienation at school.

“I’ve lived through difficult times at my college. I may be wrong about it, but I felt that my male and female colleagues’ looks were tearing me apart. This made me avoid going to the college for several days, and I could have failed that year if it hadn’t been for the assistance of a female colleague,” she adds.

Even though freedom of conscience is enshrined in Article 5 of the Tunisian constitution, which “protects the free exercise of beliefs with reservation that they do not disturb the public order”, a growing number of women experience coercion in religious practices.

Rabiaa, in her 30s, is one of them. She admits to wearing Islamic garments out of fear of her husband’s violence.

“He threatened to divorce me and to prevent me from seeing my kids if I insisted on my rejection of the veil and cloak,” she tells Magharebia.

“When he came to propose to me four years ago, he didn’t show any objections to my lifestyle or the clothes that I was wearing. He even said he was not praying. However, one year after marriage, he changed abruptly and changed his clothes. Even the topics he was talking about at home differed, and he prevented me from watching certain TV channels. He eventually forced me to follow his new lifestyle in terms of clothes and even the way of eating,” she says.

Rabiaa is not alone: she confesses to having met several women like her who complained about “their husbands’ change, and how they [women] started to suffer in silence as a result”.

A friend of hers was abused for objecting to her husband forcing their 10-year old daughter to wear the hijab.

Hadia faced a similar situation. Even though she received education at a prestigious university, she was forced to quit her job as a doctor after marriage and stay at one of her husband’s private farms.

“He told me that I could leave the house only with him or the driver. I reluctantly accepted. However, I eventually had to flee my matrimonial residence after life became impossible with him, especially as he turned his farm into a meeting place for people like him who are religiously intolerant,” she says.

Not only women, however, are witnessing the changes. Khalid Zeytouni says that he was surprised to see one day his wife covered in black, with “a thick veil” on her head.

“I asked her to remove these strange clothes that would attract the eyes of intruders at work and among her neighbours,” he says. “She knows that I’m a believer and that I don’t do anything that would displease God. However, she insisted on her position and told me that she would be an infidel if she removed her veil, saying that the verse was clear.”

Zeytouni even thought of divorcing his wife and left his home.

“However, I returned one month later and told her that I’ve come back only because of my children, that she has to forget forever about going out with me to any public place, and that she can’t impose her lifestyle on us at home,” he says.

“We’ve agreed on these things, and here we are until now, living together as if we’re divorced,” Zeytouni adds.

Still, not everyone agrees that resurging religious practices stem from coercion.

“The case with the veil in Tunisia is a matter of fashion and is the result of influence from certain groups; it’s the herd mentality, where girls just imitate each other without understanding the meaning of veil. Even women up to a certain age are influenced by satellite channels,” writer Rach Tounsi explains.

For lawyer and women’s rights activist Monia El Abdi, the most disturbing trend is that young girls are obliged to wear the veil and follow a certain pattern of behaviour “without any regard for the needs of their childhood”.

“The matter is primarily related to underage girls or female students at primary schools. We now see this phenomenon in some popular areas. We really need to pay attention to this issue, especially after we found out that the veil has become prevalent among all classes. It used to be found among adult women and female employees at workplaces or universities. We considered it to be related to the freedom of wearing clothes, at a time when veiled women were making their choices to wear the veil absolutely freely without any external pressures. This was why the women’s movement addressed this issue very cautiously in order not to be accused of disrespecting personal choices,” she says.

For her part, women’s rights activist Mariam Zghidi says that the worst thing that a woman can be subjected to is the obligation to hide her body.

“I know the story of a girl who is not more than 19 years old and who suffered a lot from a husband who is over 50 years old,” Zghidi said. “She was forced to marry him because he was wealthier than her family that was living in poverty. Her brothers were trying to convince her that she married a pious, God-fearing man. However, after he asked her to wear the niqab, the pious, devoted person turned into a monster.”

According to lawyer and feminist Saida Garrach, “some husbands’ use of the so-called obedience involves a lot of excess. It’s even contrary to the rules of constitution and personal status code, especially article 23 as amended in 1993, which replaced the phrases ‘obedience and care for men’ with ‘partnership and co-operation inside the family’.”

The practice of forcing a woman to wear hijab contravenes not only the law but Islamic precepts themselves, according to some scholars.

“There is no compulsion in religion, especially as Islam calls for enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong,” Cheikh Tajeddine Kouki maintains. “Even if we assumed that wearing the veil is a duty on the Muslim woman, the man is not required to force his wife, sister or daughter to wear it.”

Men’s guardianship of women doesn’t mean submission but responsibility, professor of Islamic culture Shakir Sharfi argues. “God said ‘men’ rather than ‘males.’ Being a man is a value rather than a gender, which does not apply to all men,” he says.

“The fall of masks is an essential thing in any religion, especially with regards to forcing women to wear the veil,” student Haifa Turki says.

Egyptian Minister of Religious Endowment Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq: Wearing the Niqab Is Forbidden in Islam

Not so.  My Koran from the ‘King Fahd Academy’ must not be doubted. And besides, the Saudis call the shots:

^{Surah 33. AlAhzab,  59} O prophet! Tell your wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their cloaks  (veils) all over their bodies (i.e. screen themselves completely except eyes or one eye to see the way) that will be better, that they should be known (as free respectable women) so as not to be annoyed.  And Allah is oft-forgiving, most merciful.

MEMRI

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian Minister of Religious Endowment Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, which aired on Al-Hayat 2 TV on November 8, 2010:

Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq: Wearing the niqab is completely forbidden in Islam.

Interviewer: It is forbidden.

Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq: Yes.

Interviewer: So not only is it not a duty – it is even forbidden?

Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq: It is not a duty, not part of the Sunna, and not recommended or anything.

[...]

There is another thing – the niqab prevents interpersonal communication. Islam strives to benefit society, and the spreading of the niqab is not in the best interest of society. The niqab is used to commit crimes. This has happened is several Islamic countries. In Somalia, for example, two veiled women blew themselves up in a large mosque, killing more than 50 people. Interpersonal communication is impossible unless people’s faces are visible. If I talk to somebody, I want to see how my words affect this person – whether what I say is accepted or causes anger, and so on. The niqab prevents us from communicating with one another.

Interviewer: What is your view on girls who are made to wear the hijab? In Egypt, it is very common these days to make 3-4 year old girls wear the hijab, and if you ask their parents, they say it is in order to get her used to the hijab.

Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq: First of all, this is not required by Islam. Let me tell you a story. The late Sheik Tantawi once told me that he went to inaugurate an Al-Azhar elementary school for girls, in Burj Al-Arab, I think. He told me that he was astounded to see all the girls there wearing the hijab. They were only six years old. So he asked: Why do you force them to wear the hijab? He was told that their parents insist upon it. This is a serious mistake, because a girl of this age wants to experience her childhood and play with her peers. Why would we deprive her of this? This hinders her development and her education. It is totally unnecessary.

[...]

Related links:

• Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Files Lawsuit Against Sheikh Tantawi’s Burqa Fatwa
• The burka is as illegal as a fatwa, or honor killing, or FGM… or Islamic terror…

Hidden in plain sight/Phyllis Chesler

He hid her in plain sight.

Her face was on posters plastered all over Utah, her kidnapping had launched one of the greatest manhunts in American history. Nevertheless, Brian Mitchell, the man who kidnapped 14 year-old Elizabeth Smart at knife-point in her bedroom actually got away with it for nine months. He kept Elizabeth as his sex slave and “second wife” for that long.

Only now, is he finally standing trial for his crimes; rather, only now is Mitchell’s “competency” to stand trial being legally tested.

This past week, in a hushed courtroom, Elizabeth took the stand.

She explained: Only weeks after her kidnapping, a long-bearded Mitchell and his small hostage were in a Salt Lake City library. A detective–one among many—who were searching for Smart stopped them and asked Elizabeth to lift her veil. However, Mitchell told the police officer that no man other than her husband had the “religious right” to see his “wife’s” face.

Yes: Brian Crazy-as-a-fox Mitchell had insisted that Smart, like his 57-year-old wife Wanda Barzee, wear face veils. Both women remained silent and veiled, dressed in disturbingly outlandish white “Biblical” robes just as Mitchell did. In the library, Mitchell remained obstinate. The detective was the one who finally backed down.

The moment the police officer walked away was the moment when Elizabeth gave up all hope. Mitchell had already threatened to kill her and her parents if she ever revealed her identity.

Mitchell is finally, at long last, on trial for his crimes. Elizabeth is now 23 years old and this poignant and terrible detail is part of her testimony.

Eight years ago in America, a detective could be shamed by a homeless street preacher into not lifting an all-too-silent missing girl’s face veil. Why? Was the Utah and Mormon tradition of leniency towards underground child and plural marriage to blame? Mitchell had once been active in the Mormon Church, had married three times, and was a self-proclaimed polygamist. But Mormons do not wear long flowing white robes and Mormon women are not veiled.

Was it an overwhelming respect for “religion” in general, for “religious misogyny” or for “religious” men that had led this detective to back down? Were people in three states: Utah, Nevada and San Diego, California (where Mitchell had even been arrested for a petty burglary) so accustomed to veiled women?

In a 2003 New York Times article, reporter Timothy Egan quoted a clerk in a Wrigley’s supermarket near San Diego where Mitchell had often shopped or begged for food.  ”He was the one in charge,” said Widad Dermody. “I’d ask (the women) how you doing? And only he would answer.” Customers in several health food stores frequented by Mitchell, said that they were used to “hippies and vegans” and that the long robes, while unusual, were simply accepted.

But the veils? Hippy and vegan women do not veil themselves. Is this a case of tolerance, permissiveness, live-and-let-live run amok? Or, is this a classic case of the bystander phenomenon, of people not allowing themselves to think the worst, not wanting to put themselves in the line of fire if it is the worst?

Or, was the fact that another, older woman was with Mitchell and Elizabeth, probably day and night and certainly during public outings, the mitigating factor? Mitchell’s first “wife,” 57-year-old Wanda Barzee, collaborated with Mitchell. Thus, when the trio ate in diners, often free meals, witnesses said that Elizabeth could have run away or asked someone for help but instead she remained mute, faceless, brainwashed, perhaps terrified. She had a new “mother-wife” now, another female of the species who went along with the kidnapping. If another woman is involved, it had to be all right, yes? Women are kind to each other and to children, yes? Surely, Elizabeth was perceived as their child and what parents, especially religious parents, would harm their own child?

Sometimes, male sex fiends, maniacs, sociopaths, are helped by female accomplices. Some women actually marry men who have been convicted and imprisoned for life for having murdered their wives or for having sexually tortured and murdered many women. Ted Bundy found a wife and also managed to father a daughter before he was executed in Florida. The scenarios are often quite terrible. For example, in 1977 Colleen Stan was kidnapped while hitchhiking from Oregon to California by Cameron Hooker and his wife Janice. Colleen was kept as a sex slave for seven years and forced to stay in a coffin-like box under the marital bed. Christine McGuire, who eventually prosecuted Hooker, and Carla Norton, wrote about this chilling case in Perfect Victim. The Hookers raised two children and frequently entertained guests in their home—none of whom suspected anything.

But back to Elizabeth Smart and the precise way in which her kidnapper was able to keep her hidden in full view. He veiled her. It was as simple as that. And absolutely no one thought a veiled girl or woman was that unusual or that the state, or private individuals, had the right to question a man whose women are veiled.

Recall, the Smart kidnapping took place eight years ago. Only now, is Smart currently testifying against her kidnapper in court. Mitchell has been charged with child abduction, abuse, and rape.  He was not in the courtroom because he had been ejected for “singing.”

It boggles the mind. Step back for a moment.

Think about how non-religious men of evil—Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot–have gotten away with mass murdering millions of human beings, think about their willing accomplices, both male and female. Think about the mass murder of humanity carried out by religious madmen, who believe that God is ordering them to kill, think about all their willing accomplices. Think about what politically powerless high functioning male sociopaths do to their victims before they finally murder them? Think about the homosexual pedophile and cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer, about Jack the Ripper and the Green River killer who preyed on prostituted women, presumably human “throwaways.”

Now, given the evil that exists among human beings and given our American and Western traditions of tolerance and privacy, our fearfulness of “getting involved,” of coming between a man and his female “property,” a man and a child in flight from him, or between anyone and their religion, what can we do when we might find ourselves up against such unfathomable evil?

At the very least, based on the Smart case alone, we should not allow women to be veiled in public. That much—that little—we can do.

I would also like to point out that I am not singling out any one religion for Mitchell’s crimes, not Mormonism, not Christianity, but am, rather, taking an approach very similar to the approach taken by the French law which banned the burqa, an approach which was religion-neutral and did not mention any particular religion, including Islam which is the only religion that face veils its women

I would very much like to thank Beth Gilinsky for reminding me of the Smart case and its relevance to my own work about the burqa.

MEMRI

Muslim French Intellectuals Criticize Obama’s Statement on the Hijab

“We seem to have forgotten the blood-soaked days in my country of origin, Algeria, when women were slaughtered for [choosing not to wear the veil]

in his June 4, 2009 Cairo speech, U.S. President Hussein Obama emphasized that Muslim women in the U.S. are free to don the hijab. He said: “…Freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.”

Obama’s statements triggered strong criticism among Arab intellectuals in France, where for the past few years there has been an ongoing debate about the permissibility of wearing the veil in public.

Following are excerpts from some of their reactions:

Reformist writer Dr. Abdelwahab Meddeb, a professor of comparative literature at the University of Paris X in Nanterre and author of the books The Malady of Islam (New York: Basic Books, 2003) and Counter-Preaching (Contre-Prêches, Seuil, Paris, 2006)  wrote: “Obama’s pertinent speech in Cairo was wrong in at least one respect. Let us say [for the sake of the argument] – though I find it difficult to do so – that women should be free to wear the veil. [Still, Obama] should have added that they must [also] be free to remove it.”

Related Links

• Catalonia: More burka-ban proposals
• Basel: Woman attacked for wearing headscarf
• France: Muslim intellectuals criticize Obama’s hijab statement

Leila Barbès, a professor of religion and sociology at the Catholic University of Lille, also referred to the hijab issue, though not in direct response to Obama’s speech. She explained that, in the context of the veil, “free choice” was an illusion: “The moment [wearing] the veil is presented as a divine duty, the issue of free choice is no longer valid, [and] all Muslim women are exposed to [this religious] propaganda. How can we pretend they have a choice when they are told that [their] religion obligates [them to wear a veil]? The women [who wear] a full veil [i.e. a niqab, which covers everything but the eyes,] do so in order to comply with what is requested and expected of them by their husbands or their sect.”

Sihem Habchi, president of the feminist organization Ni Putes Ni Soumises ["Neither Whores nor Slaves"], said: “We seem to have forgotten the blood-soaked days in my country of origin, Algeria, when women were slaughtered for [choosing not to wear the veil]. And what about the Afghan women [under the Taliban], who were denied education and suffered from the [negative] effects of wearing that portable prison [the burqa]?

“To think that Mr. Obama reached out to fundamentalists in Cairo, trying to buy them with [his statement about] the veil! He did not say a word in Cairo about fundamental freedoms… or about all the women who are currently fighting around the world to launch a debate [about the veil] in their country! We must support these women… What are we afraid of?”

Philosopher Abdennour Bidar, author of numerous articles on modern Islam, expressed sorrow that Obama had been more concerned with image than with other, more important considerations. In an interview about the issue of the niqab, he said: “[It's a pity that] politicians, and especially Obama, seem to sacrifice the truth for the sake of appearance, and [choose] a mode of communication that consecrates image [above anything else]…”

Shocker: French Muslims complain of feeling “stigmatized” after woman fined for driving with vision obscured by niqab

The rules of “rock-paper-scissors” are more grounded in reality: here, hurt feelings trump safety behind the wheel. Indeed, this case is so much like others in which practices in the Muslim world, or by Muslims who continue those practices in the West: You can’t criticize without apologists claiming the problem does not really exist even as it stares them in the face, and if you do, you cannot possibly have any motive other than bilious, seething hatred.

‘The muslims of Nantes… are worried by this systematic stigmatisation which goes against the values of the Republic,’ the collective of Nantes mosques said in a statement.

There may be a certain urgency here to deflect attention from the practice of polygamy — that could be an entirely new proverbial can of worms, alongside the ongoing issue of the niqab. And there’s no better diversionary tactic than claiming victim status as loudly and as often as possible.

An update on this story. “French muslims [sic] feel stigmatised in veil row,” from RTÉ News, April 25/via JW

Comedy Gold From Bunglawussi Watch:

French government continues to incite Islamophobia over veil

Resisting Islam causes wars and the infidels are responsible for them….

Click to read more …

Resistance is useless:

The Bristol Evening Post draws our attention to yet another bigoted anti-mosque campaign on Facebook, this one entitled “No we do not want a mosque in Barton Hill“.

Flicks are not doing their job, les Muselmanes complain:

Gunshots fired at French mosque

Mohamed Moussaoui, president of an umbrella organization of French Muslim groups, says the incident deserves more attention. He says media have instead focused on the case of a Muslim man accused of having several wives. How inconsiderate! Don’t they know what their priorities are to be? Straits Times, 26 April 2010

The Battle Over The Freedom Sack

H/T Islam in Europe

Belgian government collapsed as MPs are set to vote on a proposed ban on wearing face-covering veils in public, a day after France move.

Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme’s five-month-old government collapsed on Thursday after the Flemish liberal party pulled out of his coalition.

The move comes as Belgian lawmakers are set to vote on a proposed ban on wearing face-covering veils in public, a day after neighbouring France proposed enacting similar legislation.

France: Veil law: Driver fined / Deputy threatened/A French driver was fined 22 euro for driving veiled.  According to the police her field of vision was decreased by the niqab, a veil which covers everything but the eyes, French media reported Friday./Islam in Europe

France: Ban will also apply to tourists/Muslim tourists in France will be forbidden to wear the full-face veil along with French residents under the government’s plan to ban the garment in public places, a minister said on Thursday./Islam in Europe

Leterme, 49, called an emergency meeting of his cabinet early on Thursday afternoon to inform ministers that his second term in office was at an end, and left for the royal palace to tender his government’s resignation to King Albert.

“Yves Leterme had no other choice than to inform us that he would go to the king immediately to tender the government’s resignation,” Health Minister Laurette Onkelinx told reporters.

Without the backing of the centre-right Open VLD, the remaining four parties in government still have 76 of the 150 seats in the lower house of parliament but it would be hard to govern with such a slim majority.

Open VLD said it had lost confidence in the government because of its failure to resolve a dispute between French- and Dutch-speaking parties over electoral boundaries around the capital, Brussels.

“We have not agreed on a negotiated solution and therefore Open VLD no longer has confidence in the government,” said Alexander De Croo, the party’s chairman.

Belgium is divided between the Dutch-speaking majority and the French-speaking minority. They are bitterly at odds over the question of who should have more political rights over Brussels, a largely French-speaking city in Dutch-speaking territory.

“Vote on ban”

The scheduled vote on Thursday in Brussels comes after the federal parliament’s home affairs committee voted unanimously on March 31 to endorse a nationwide ban on clothing that does not allow the wearer to be fully identified.

The ban would include the full-face niqab and the burqa, a shapeless full-body cloak that covers the face with a fabric grille.

Those who ignore the ban could face a fine of up to $34 and/or a jail sentence of up to seven days.

Belgium’s governing parties and opposition both appear to agree on the ban, and the full house is expected to easily endorse the draft law.

If enacted, the bill would make Belgium the first European country to ban the garments.

“Ban attempts criticised”

Almost 10 per cent of France’s 62 million population is Muslim.

Most Muslim women, in France’s immigrant communities and around the world, do not wear a full veil, but the niqab, which covers the face apart from the eyes, is widely worn on the Arabian peninsular and in the Gulf states.

Useful Idiot Watch:

Human Rights Watch warned against such legislation, in a statement issued late Wednesday criticising the Belgian initiative.

“Bans like this lead to a lose-lose situation,” said Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“They violate the rights of those who choose to wear the veil and do nothing to help those who are compelled to do so.”

There was no evidence that wearing the full veil in public threatened public safety, public order, health, morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others, she added.

“At a time when Muslims in Europe feel more vulnerable than ever, the last thing needed is a ban like this, treating pious Muslim women like criminals won’t help integrate them,” Sunderland added.

FINALLY! France and Italy have something to resent more than Americans.

Franco speaking! Franco my man!

Unfortunately, Franco is no Geert Wilders.

Those of us who have been keeping an eye on Frattini know that he is a limp dick who swings in either direction.  He is merely testing the water with his statements which are carefully drafted to leave him with a multitude of escape hatches.

The face veil in its various forms is the most visible symbol of an ideology that wants nothing to do with equality and integration. “Italy: Foreign minister rejects face veil,” from AdnKronos International, January 27, thanks to JW:

Florence, 27 Jan. (AKI) – Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini on Wednesday voiced his opposition to the face veil. Women wearing the garment pose security issues and symbolise “a refusal to integrate” by Muslim immigrants in a host country, he said.

”Let’s ask ourselves if covering one’s face isn’t the first sign of refusal to integrate and closing oneself off… from the host community and its traditions,” Frattini said.

Counter Jihad Links:

Berlusconi tells it like it is:

Italy: Fewer Muslim immigrants, less crime

• Sweden will never ban burka
• Danish PM: Burqa does not belong to Denmark
• Norway will not deport or imprison Muslim terrorist – wont!!!
• Dutch Moroccan Muslims trash youth center
• Germany consider French-style burka ban
• Swiss court bans Muslim basketball players’ headscarf
• Should the UK ban the Muslim face veil?

Diversity under shrouds:

The Muslim veil comes in various forms including the burka and niqab

He was speaking at a conference of young publishers taking place in the Tuscan city of Florence, a day after France moved a step closer to banning the face veil.

A French parliamentary committee on Tuesday issueda report recommending a partial ban on the face veil in hospitals, schools, government offices and on public transport.

“It is the symbol of the repression of women, and… of extremist fundamentalism,” said French parliament speaker Bernard Accoyer upon the presentation of the report.

France’s parliamentary recommendation is expected to be followed by the drafting of a bill and a parliamentary debate on the issue of the face veil, which has sparked heated debate in many European countries.

“I would not legislate on the face veil but would tackle the issue through a wider process,” Frattini said, noting that it raised also security problems.

”When someone enters a bank or a public office veiled from head to toe, it seems logical to me there is a security issue,” he said….

————————————————————————————————–

Yes, let’s also ask ourselves why any country would openly welcome millions who believed that slavery, sex slavery, extortion, death for insults, robbery, theft, amputations, death for adultery, etc., etc. is not only OK, but allowed or required by Muslims per Koran.

Poster “Kuffar” from England:

In the UK, there is a well-known phrase that is used to describe people unwilling to integrate or undertake things requested of them.

It’s known as “FIFO” management.

FIFO = Fit In or F*** Off

But the Italians and French have always been more polite than we mere Brits.

I wonder how long it will be before the US and UK, “Go FIFO” on Islam and Muslims?

59 % said no, never

12 % said yes, its ‘portable seclusion’-freedom!

16 % believe the wrong choice could get them killed

13 % (!)  believe uncovered women “burn in hell”

Looks like this blog attracts a great number of Muslims. The answers are rather troubling.

New poll coming up, stay tuned!

The hijab debate: ‘I don’t want to be judged on my looks’ 

 * It is usually the “reverts” who behave  this way… confirmed  here: “I reject beauty fascism”- another one “”I was brought up a Catholic …” or this one: ”I wasn’t always Muslim. But seeing the hijab on a visit to Egypt 10 years ago opened my eyes. I asked one woman why she wore it and she said: ‘I want to be judged for what I do, not what I look like’…. Good luck to you, ladies!

 Two pupils removed their veil to attend a Catholic school open day, but their Muslim teacher refused the request     

By James Tozer/Mail Online

A Muslim teacher was barred from visiting a Catholic college after refusing to remove her full-face veil so staff could identify her.

Now the school may face a claim of religious discrimination after the woman left rather than agreeing to reveal her face.

The teacher, who works at an Islamic school, was attending an open day at the sixth form college along with two teenage pupils, all of them wearing veils which left only their eyes visible.

They were asked to remove them as it was against the college policy – but while the girls complied, their teacher refused.

The incident, which happened in Jack Straw’s Blackburn constituency, comes as the issue of the full-face veil is once again at the centre of debate, and could see the school plunged into a court battle.

• (UK) Muslim Gangs Running ‘Savage’ Dog Fights…
• British High Court Fails to Deport Criminal Illegal Alien…
• The New Muslim Migrants
• National Geographic Joins the Jihad

Last week French president Nicolas Sarkozy provoked controversy when he called for the similar, all-enveloping burkha to be banned, branding it a sign of ‘subservience and debasement’ rather than of religion.

Mr Straw himself said in 2006 that veils could make community relations harder as they were a ‘visible statement of separation and difference’. 

The incident happened at an open day for prospective students hosted by St Mary’s College in Blackburn, Lancashire.

Two girls thought to be aged 15 agreed with requests to remove their niqab face veils, but their teacher refused even after she was told it was against the college’s policy, and left the premises.

The teacher, who works at the Islamiya Girls High School in nearby Great Harwood, was yesterday said to be ‘shocked and upset’ at being turned away.

Earlier this year another Catholic college in Blackburn, Our Lady and St John, turned away a Muslim mother from her child’s parents evening because she was wearing a full-face veil.

In both cases, the colleges bar anyone from wearing any items which obscure the face, including crash helmets, on the grounds that they need to be able to identify anyone who visits their premises.

Muslim staff and pupils are also prevented from wearing veils as this would hamper their ability to communicate.

Yesterday, however, local Muslims criticised the extension of the ban to visitors, while governors of the private Islamic school attended by the girls are considering lodging a formal complaint that the college’s policy is discriminatory.

Abdul Hamid Qureshi, chairman of Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: ‘We understand when they say it isn’t conducive to learning for pupils and teachers to wear the niqab, but she was only visiting as part of an open day, she wasn’t teaching a class.

‘Women who wear the niqab think that to remove it in front of adult men is being disobedient to God’s will, so they won’t.

‘To ask mothers and other visitors to the school to take off their veils means they will stay away, and that will harm efforts to encourage Muslim families to engage with their children’s education.’

Meanwhile a source at the Islamiya school, which has 250 pupils, said: ‘We have a very good relationship with St Mary’s and the parents respect the education it provides.

‘But this is the first we’ve heard of this policy – surely the onus was on them to inform us about it?’

Muslim teenagers make up a growing proportion of students at St Mary’s, with 28 per cent from ethnic minorities, and Ofsted has praised its ‘outstanding’ record in promoting dialogue between people of different backgrounds.

Last night college principal Kevin McMahon defended the decision, saying: ‘Such dialogue can only take place if all those in the college are prepared to participate in full communication.  

‘For this reason, and the importance of being able to identify those on the site throughout their time with us, St Mary’s has a long-standing policy that people entering the site do not have their faces covered.’

He was backed by David Green, director of the thinktank Civitas, who said: ‘The college is absolutely right – most Muslims would say it isn’t a religious obligation to cover the face, so if you do so in this country, you’re making a political stance.

‘It’s a courageous decision to make a stand because there’s a risk they’ll face a legal challenge.

‘But I think 99 per cent of people would agree with them, and the Government should come out and say they will always back schools which follow this policy.’

Schools have been allowed to restrict the wearing of veils since two key judgements.
In 2006, classroom assistant Aishah Azmi lost a discrimination claim after she was asked to remove her veil while working at a Dewsbury junior school.

The following year a 12-year-old girl lost a High Court battle to be able to wear the niqab at her Buckinghamshire grammar school.

However the Government opted against an outright ban, saying it was for individual schools and councils to decide.

More on burka, niqab, freedom sack:

The so-called  Muslim community is not united in this: “The French president should be applauded for initiating this debate,” Dr Taj Hargey of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford told me yesterday. Dr Hargey describes the growing belief that Muslim women should cover their head, face and hands as “doctrinaire brain-washing”. Dr Usama Hasan, a reformist London Imam, also has “some sympathy” with Sarkozy: he too does not think it is necessary for women to wear the burka.

These sentiments will reassure those, including the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, who feel uncomfortable in the presence of women dressed from top to toe in black, with only their eyes visible.

* Where ya hiding, Jackie boy?  is “the alternative to horrible to contemplate” to you?

No we don’t.

We don’t respect polygamy, wife-beating, child marriage, FGM, stoning of adulterous women, beheadings, arm-and feet amputations, Koran riots, cartoon riots, pope riots, teddy bear riots, rape-jihad on infidel women, suicide bombers, hijackers, honor-killings and all the rest either.

We cannot, and will not respect a violent cult that comes with a religious mandate for genocide on Jews and Christians, we don’t respect a cult that seeks our submission by paying the jiziya or forcible conversion, we cannot  respect those who demand we accept the terror regime  of the sharia to subjugate us.

Defending the freedom sack:

Regular readers know that  the slick John Esposito,  director of the “ Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding” in Georgetown is a paid whore for the Saudi royal family.  Which means the Sauds pay him big bucks to promote  Islam in America. Documents Link Saudi Ruling Family to al-Qaeda…

Which, in turn, means that a man on the payroll of the world’s most oppressive Islamic regime is engaged by the Washington Post and Newsweek to provide their readers with objective facts about Islam. This perverse state of affairs is, alas, par for the course in today’s mainstream media.

* The burka, a symbol of repression, has no place in a free society

• Whitewashing Islam
• Dhimmi Watch: Georgetown gets $20 million from prince promoting …
• Rashid Khalidi, Campus Watch & Middle East Studies -
• Wakademic F*kcwits John Esposito & Koran Armstrong tell us once again we got it all wrong about Islam…

Esposito: “West must respect the Muslim veil”-

… but no call for Muslims to respect us…

Esposito

Modernity should not be defined solely from a Western, liberal, secular-centred point of view. Our world today is one of multiple modernities, in which societies are increasingly multicultural and religiously and non-religiously pluralistic. Western societies should respect the rights of Muslim women who choose to wear the veil.”

John Esposito in the Gulf Times, 25 June 2009