Russian university lifts hijab ban – prosecutor’s office

The Krasnoyarsk State Medical University has canceled a rule prohibiting students from wearing religious clothing in class, such as traditional Muslim headscarves, the regional prosecutor’s office reported on Wednesday.

The prosecutors demanded that the rule be annulled, claiming that it conflicts with the education law.

The attention of prosecutors was brought to the issue earlier when a female student was expelled in March for wearing a hijab. A Dagestani native, she violated the university dress code by wearing a traditional Muslim headdress.

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Norway employer regrets hijab gaffe

Ebru Akinci

Senior management in western Norway have issued an apology after asking a female staff member refrain from using her hijab at work.

The incident was sparked off after Upper Secondary School pupil Ebru Akinci was called into the manager’s office at a Shell petrol station in Stavanger last week.

She had just started her new part-time job that day following a short period of training when general manager Sigve Grønnestad posed the question.

“I asked if it was okay for her if she did not wear her hijab during her working hours here. She answered me that she would think about it,” he tells regional paper Stavanger Aftenblad.

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Why do the French hate the hijab?

In light of the backlash that followed the recent court ruling in favour of Fatima Afif’s right to wear a headscarf at work, Marie Dhumieres asks what it is that provokes such hysteria over the hijab among the non-Muslim population of France.

She concludes: “French should maybe take some time to think about why they really care so much, and maybe forget for a second what they believe ‘the hijab’ represents and think about the women under them. For example, about how humiliating it might be for a mother to be banned from accompanying her child’s class on a school trip because her head is covered. Because extremism is indeed dangerous, but it goes both ways.”

Independent,16 April 2013

Knifeman ordered Bristol women to take off hijabs

A man racially abused a Muslim woman and demanded she took off her hijab before putting a kitchen knife to her throat. David Norris, 39, approached Farduja Jama who was with her eight-year-old son in Morton Street, Barton Hill at 9am.

Drunken Norris, who was brandishing a six-inch knife told her: “Take the hijab off. This is England, you are not allowed. Take the hijab off before I stab you.” He then pointed the blade at Miss Jama and put the blade to the left and right of her throat.

Later the same day Norris approached Iqbal Osman who was watching her four-year-old play in Barton Hill Urban Park. He asked her why she was wearing too many clothes and accused Muslims of “taking over” his country. He again brandished the knife before leaving.

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Muslim job seeker’s suit can proceed against Abercrombie & Fitch

A federal judge has refused to dismiss a religious discrimination case brought on behalf of a job applicant who wore a hijab, a Muslim head covering, and was rejected by Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc.

Among issues cited in Tuesday’s ruling by a San Jose, Calif., federal judge in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc., dba Abercrombie Kids were the shifting reasons provided by the manager-in-training who interviewed teenager Halla Banafa and rejected her for a position as a stock room clerk in the company’s Milpitas, Calif., store.

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‘I am not oppressed’

“I am a proud Muslim-American woman, and I am tired. I am tired of being told that I am oppressed. That I have no voice. That I need to be liberated.

“I am tired, and I am speaking out for the rights of my and other fellow Muslim sisters to be able to dress and be how they wish to be.”

Laila Alawa rejects FEMEN’s claim that they are working for her liberation.

Huffington Post, 10 April 2013

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