Category Archives: Hijab

Dagestan permits headscarves in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The government of Russia’s predominantly Muslim North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan has permitted wearing headscarves in schools, a spokesman for Dagestan’s education ministry said on Monday.

“On an instruction from Dagestan’s acting leader Ramazan Abdulatipov, designers of Dagestan have drafted school uniform outfits,” the spokesman said. “They are in line with the national school uniform requirements. The only element of [Dagestan] folk clothes is a thin headscarf.”

The spokesman said these school uniform designs were optional, and it was up to schools to decide on whether to follow the recommendations.

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Politicians must follow ‘hijab outcry’ with action

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Michael Privot, director of the European Network Against Racism, welcomes the development of grassroots initiatives across Europe against racist violence and intolerance. However, he argues:

“Public actions like the ‘hijab outcry‘ in Sweden also communicate the need for more political determination to tackle hate crime. So far, politicians in Sweden and Europe have failed to develop effective responses, and there is often an unwillingness to recognize the severity of the problem.”

The Local, 3 September 2013

Quebec mosque vandalised with pig’s blood

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Saguenay mosque blood

Police in Quebec’s Saguenay region have been called in after a local mosque was vandalized over the weekend – splattered with what could be pig blood.

Representatives of the area’s small Muslim community say they believe it to be an isolated incident, and Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay agrees. Contacted by The Canadian Press Sunday, Tremblay said he was shocked by what he termed an “isolated and stupid” act of intolerance against a place of worship.

The mayor insisted that most local residents would also be appalled by the attack. “That’s not the mentality people in the region have… All it takes is one or two stupid people for something like this to happen,” he said in an interview. He said the incident undermines the community’s efforts to welcome diversity. “This isn’t the way to show we have an open mind,” he said.

A letter was also sent to the mosque and to the local Radio-Canada station spouting anti-Islamic rhetoric.

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Should the ‘veil’ be banned in higher education?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It seems that the French never tire of debating the role of religion in public life. Or perhaps the concept of laïcité, a uniquely French model of secularism, just keeps tangling them up in political knots.

The most recent dispute over the wearing of the Islamic veil by French university students has once again laid bare the problems and paradoxes of a nation struggling to apply a revered historical principle to a rapidly changing social environment. It also reveals how the discourse and practice of laïcité have become caught in a time warp.

Rosemary Salomone writes in University World News, 1 September 2013

Liberal leader defends candidate’s burqa comments

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has confessed to finding the burqa “confronting” while defending Liberal candidate Ray King for describing the Islamic attire as a “sign of oppression”.

Asked whether he supported the statements by Mr King, who drew a link between the burqa and criminality at a fund-raiser, Mr Abbott admitted he found it “a very confronting attire. “Frankly, it’s not the sort of attire that I would like to see widespread in our streets,” Mr Abbott told reporters on Saturday, while campaigning in Queensland.

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Muslim teens say cops ripped off their hijabs during brutal Bronx arrest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Khalia Wilson and Lamis ChapmanTwo Muslim teenage sisters say the NYPD brutalized them and ripped off their hijabs after they were ordered to leave a Bronx park Monday night. In what appears to be an exclusive report, the Daily News says that Lamis Chapman, 12, and Khalia Wilson, 14, were thrown to the ground and had their head scarves ripped off by the officers at the Lester Patterson Houses in Mott Haven. Khalia says she was put in a choke-hold, telling the tabloid, “They said they asked for ID. I didn’t hear them.”

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Sydney: Parliamentary candidate attacks Muslim women who wear veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ray KingA Liberal candidate in a western Sydney electorate where nearly half of voters were born overseas used his campaign launch to urge an end to Muslim women wearing the burqa, drawing a link between the Islamic tradition and criminality.

Ray King, a former Liverpool police commander standing against Treasurer Chris Bowen in McMahon, claimed the burqa was a “sign of oppression”, according to one attendee.

The comments were made in front of guests including the disgraced former detective Roger Rogerson, 2UE broadcaster Jason Morrison and the Assistant NSW Police Commissioner for south-west Sydney, Frank Mennilli.

Also present at the $300-a-head fund-raiser at Candelori’s Restaurant in Smithfield were Liberal Senator Marise Payne, federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly and two members of the Coalition state government, Stuart Ayres and Andrew Rohan.

Mr King’s comments alarmed some Liberal guests as they echoed strident public statements he had made during his policing career, including that migrants should be stripped of welfare to force them to “get off their backside”.

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Catalan cops harass Muslim women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mossos d’EsquadraCatalan cops are keeping a close eye on Muslim women wearing full-body veils to determine whether they are linked to any radical Islamist groups in the region.

Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra police are taking a census of every Muslim woman wearing a niqab or burqa. Whenever they see a woman wearing a full-body veil which also covers their faces, by taking down their details and passing it on to the local authorities. “Catalan police have always been convinced that niqab-bearing women can be indicative of a radical or Salafist branch of Islam,” Spain’s Interior ministry explained.

On July 18th, the Catalan Parliament approved a motion which bans people from covering their faces if deemed a security risk. Several political parties in the region are now pushing for the law to apply to Muslim head gear, which would prohibit its usage in public spaces across Catalonia.

The Local, 27 August 2013

Victim of racist attack attempts suicide

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Le Parisien reports that Aissetou, the young Muslim women who was attacked by racists in the Parisian suburb of Trappes earlier this month, is in hospital, having tried to commit suicide by throwing herself from a fourth-floor window.

The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France states that she had suffered hostile treatment from the police, who challenged her version of events and evidently regarded her as a liar. The CCIF pledges its full support to Aissetou and her family, and calls for an inquiry into the case.

See also Le Point, 27 August 2013

Update:  See “French girl attempts suicide after ‘veil attack’”, France 24, 27 August 2013