Magistrate walks out over Muslim woman’s veil
You got to read this to believe it.
Here we have a criminal Muslimah, charged with criminal damage, but that is all we get to know. The whole thing is twisted against a magistrate who refused to deal with her because she was wearing a ghost costume in court.
Instead of forcing the thuggish female to take the black shade cloth off, the magistrate is vilified and the whole PC-media circus focuses on ‘cultural sensitivities’- the thieving rat becomes a victim, she is ‘shocked and distressed’- Sanity has left the building!
Read it and weep:
A magistrate is facing an inquiry after refusing to deal with a defendant wearing a full Muslim veil, the Judiciary of England and Wales said yesterday.
Ian Murray walked out of the case at Manchester magistrates’ court yesterday because Zoobia Hussain, 32, of Crumpsall, Manchester, was covered by a hijab.
* Actually a burka or niqab.
Hussain’s lawyer, Judith Hawkins, said her client was “shocked and distressed” and found Mr Murray’s treatment of her “insensitive and unacceptable”.
Miss Hawkins said she would submit a formal written complaint to the court on Monday. When the complaint is received, the judiciary will launch an internal investigation into Mr Murray’s behaviour, a spokesman said.
Miss Hawkins said yesterday: “She [Hussain] remains shocked and distressed. She suffered hurt feelings and felt intimidated and deeply embarrassed by the treatment she received at court.
* Imagine! We can’t have that in multicultural diverse Britain!
“She is also concerned for the feelings of others who were present in court.
“She feels that the court’s treatment of her was insensitive, unacceptable and against the traditions of fairness and equality that we have come to expect from our system of justice.
“She is angry that, as a result of the ensuing publicity, she has now had to explain to her children what happened.”
* So the children of criminals have a right NOT to know that their parents are crims? I like that! Where do I sign up?
Hussain, who is charged with criminal damage, covered her entire face apart from her eyes when she faced the three magistrates.
Mr Murray, a taxi driver from Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, who has served on the bench for 12 years, felt the way she was dressed raised identity issues but left the hearing without explaining why.
Before he walked out, Miss Hawkins told the bench that her client, as a practising Muslim, covered herself in public places where men were present.
A statement from the Judiciary of England and Wales said: “Mr Murray is concerned about questions of identity when the full veil is worn in court.
* Submission:
“However, he agrees that he acted unwisely in disqualifying himself without giving reasons, and acknowledges that he should have sought the advice of his legal adviser in court, and discussed the provisions of the national guidelines with his colleagues on the bench, before taking action.
* Prostrating themselves before Islam:
“Mr Murray is supportive of those of different faiths and cultural traditions and acknowledges and regrets his action could be misinterpreted.”
The judiciary’s guidelines indicate situations should be judged on a case-by-case basis. But they state there should be a “willingness to accommodate different practices and approaches to religious and cultural observance”, provided “justice can be properly served”.
A spokesman for the Ramadhan Foundation said: “It is despicable that the judiciary is ignoring the guidelines about the wearing of the hijab set out only in February by the Judicial Studies Board.
* ‘Despicable?’ Guidelines?
“They require that magistrates and judges be ‘sensitive’ to a woman’s religious requirement to wear the hijab and work around it when possible.”
Hussain’s case was adjourned until July 18.
*
But it didn’t work in Georgia:
Muslim woman barred from Georgia courtroom for wearing scarf
VALDOSTA — A Muslim woman seeking to contest a simple speeding ticket in this south Georgia city says she was denied access to a municipal courtroom last week for wearing a traditional Islamic head scarf.
Aniisa Karim, 20, said she was stopped after entering Valdosta’s municipal court building Tuesday and told she would not be permitted to enter the courtroom wearing her scarf.
“I said, ‘No, I’m Muslim … I wear this for religious reasons and if you don’t allow me in the courtroom with my scarf on basically you are violating my civil rights and my right to a free religion,’ ” Karim told the Valdosta Daily Times.
Karim said an officer told her the denial was due to “homeland security reasons” and that allowing her to enter would show disrespect to Judge Vernita Lee Bender.
She said she offered to walk through a metal detector and allow officers to use a handheld metal detector to scan the scarf.
A national Islamic civil rights group has taken up the case. In a letter to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, the Council on American-Islamic Relations asks Baker to “take appropriate action to ensure that the legal, religious and civil rights of Georgians of all faiths be maintained.”
Baker’s office and the Valdosta municipal court were unable to be reached by The Associated Press for comment on Sunday.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington D.C.-based group, said neither Baker’s office nor the Valdosta city attorney had responded to his group as of Sunday afternoon.
The letter from CAIR argues that barring Karim from the courtroom violated Georgia’s code of conduct for judges and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which guarantees access to public facilities based on religious beliefs or practices.
Meanwhile, Karim said she decided to not challenge the speeding ticket and pay a $168 fine since that didn’t require her to enter the courtroom.
“I feel like in the year 2007 things like this should not happen any more,” Karim said. “Of course everyone doesn’t know everything about different religions, but if I tell you, ‘I’m Muslim this is a part of my religion,’ I feel like if you are a public officer you should be educated enough to know.”
* Right. Islam is bringing us modernity and education. The mind boggles…
Update: the same wherever the soldiers of Allah settle behind enemy lines:
February 2, 2009
Judge orders woman in court case to remove niqab
The niqab and female “honor”
Though he found it to be an “admittedly difficult decision.” Question: If this woman wants to wear the niqab, in accordance to sharia law, would she, a sexual assault victim, also want to apply sharia law’s standards regarding female-male testimonies? She’s one woman; the accused are two men. According to sharia, then, her testimony, which, as a woman, is worth half that of a man, is being countered by two men; in other words, one witness (the woman) vs. four (the two accused men — assuming they are men). One wonders if she would like this Islamic aspect to also be introduced into the trial?
“Order to take off niqab pits law against religion,” by Betsy Powell for The Star, February 2 (thanks to Kyros):
Woman to appeal ruling forcing her to unveil face in sexual assault trialÂ
A judge has ordered a Toronto woman to testify without her niqab at a sexual assault trial – raising the thorny issue of whether Muslim women should be allowed to appear as witnesses wearing a veil that covers everything but the eyes.
The issue is a collision of two rights, pitting religious freedom against the right of a defendant to face an accuser in open court.
The case could be precedent setting because it doesn’t appear there is any Canadian case law addressing the question of Muslim women in the courtroom. In Canada, home to about 580,000 Muslims, the case will be closely watched, amid fears about Muslim women coming forward in criminal cases.
In October, Ontario Court Justice Norris Weisman reached his “admittedly difficult decision” to force the complainant to testify with her face bared after finding her “religious belief is not that strong … and that it is, as she says, a matter of comfort,” he wrote in his ruling.
Lawyer David Butt is representing the woman and next month in Superior Court will argue that the Oct. 16 ruling should be overturned.
“For complainants in sexual assault cases, courtroom testimony is extremely difficult and often traumatic,” he said last week. “During such times of great anxiety the courts should respect religious rights and practices that bring comfort and sustenance, particularly when they do not undermine the fairness of the proceedings.”
When the complainant indicated last fall she wanted to wear her veil while testifying at the preliminary hearing, defence counsel told the judge that assessing her demeanour was of “critical importance” when tailoring questioning.
Weisman asked the woman to explain her objections.
“It’s a respect issue, one of modesty and one of …Â in Islam, we call honour,” she replied. “It’s also about the religious reason is to not show your face to men that you are able to marry. … I would feel a lot more comfortable if I didn’t have to, you know, reveal my face.”
The woman also said only her family sees her without the veil.
Butt, who was granted standing at the hearing last fall, argued the judge must consider the Charter which protects religious freedom when making his decision. Butt argued the accused can hear her voice and inflection, see the expression in her eyes and body language.
In his judgment, Weisman wrote “at the 11th hour we learned … she has a driver’s licence with her unveiled facial impression upon it.” She told court she took comfort the picture was taken by a female and there was a screen between her and potential male onlookers.
But Weisman wrote the “driver’s licence can be required to be produced by all sorts of males,” such as police officers and border guards.
“In investigating just how important a belief this was, it came down to her candid admissions that it was a matter of her being `more comfortable’ and to me that really is not strong enough to fetter the accused’s rights to make full answer and defence,” the judge added.
Thanks to a publication ban and the nature of the charges, the names of the complainant and the two accused cannot be published.
Debate about Muslim women and head coverings has surfaced in recent years over girls wearing the hijab to play sports and whether voters must show their faces.
While Justice Weisman was asked to rule at the outset of the preliminary hearing, which is now on hold, the matter was put over and arguments in Superior Court are now scheduled for March 2. Defence lawyer Hilary Dudding will appear on behalf of one of the accused men. She declined to comment.
A relative of the woman said it’s distressing the judge has exceeded his “jurisdiction and ventured into the interpretation of religious laws concerning the veil, not to mention the fact that … (she) has observed the veil for many years in accordance with her” beliefs.
“This is primarily an issue of protection the court offers to victims of sexual assault – especially those from minority communities, who experience the added stigma of bringing these deeply personal issues into open court.”
Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, said, in court “the laws of the country should be acceptable,” and although it is important that “sensitivity be shown … showing the face is acceptable.”
In the United Kingdom, a panel of judges drafted guidelines in 2007 that said Muslim women should be permitted to wear the niqab, as long as it does not interfere with the administration of justice, according to the Equal Treatment Advisory Committee of Britain’s Judicial Studies Board. “Such decisions, however, should be made on a case-by-case basis,” the committee said.
Forcing a woman to choose between taking part in a court case or removing her veil could affect her sense of dignity, exclude and marginalize her, the guidelines said.
Burqa is Liberation, Polygamy is Equality, Jizya is Tolerance, Lapidation is Mercy, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
i feel there is no such thing as “islamaphobia”—but there is such a thing as “islamozombieaphobia”=this “religion” turns these poor bastards into zombies!
How do the Isslams explain Turkey and the veil then??
That’s around 99% Musslim.
The vast majority of them are also extremists.
This reminds me of a case here in Florida, involving a Muslimah by the name of Sultana Freeman (or maybe Freedman) who wanted to have her driver’s license photo taken with her wearing niqab.
For several weeks, I was concerned that she would win out, but the state held its ground.
Ironically, they could have used Mrs. Freeman’s police mugshot, in compromise…
We’ve got to stop pandering to their preferences: it is NOT a Veil, it IS a MASK!!