Maxim Ferschtman and Cristina de la Serna provide a detailed analysis of the Spanish Supreme Court’s recent judgement overturning the “burqa ban” in the Catalonian city of Lleida. They argue that the ruling “could provide a precedent to prevent broader bans at both the local and the national level”.
Category Archives: Hijab
Stavropol court rejects lawsuit against hijab ban
The Stavropol Territorial Court has rejected a lawsuit against the ban on wearing headdresses to school, including the hijab, a Moscow lawyer said on Friday.
Lawyer Murad Musayev filed the lawsuit on behalf of the region’s Muslim people, who seek to annul the new school uniform requirements introduced last September.
“The court has rejected our lawsuit,” he said. “I believe this ruling was politically motivated. We will find out why the court ruled against our lawsuit in five days when they send the hearing documents to us.” He added that he plans to appeal the decision.
France: Nursery worker wins court case over hijab sacking
A French creche assistant who was famously fired for refusing to remove her Islamic head-scarf had her dismissal annulled by France’s highest appeals court on Tuesday. The court judged the sacking was “religious discrimination”.
Fatima Afif, a nursery assistant sacked in 2008 by the ‘Baby Loup’ creche for refusing to remove her Muslim headscarf at work, won an appeal against her dismissal on Tuesday.
In delivering their verdict judges at Paris’s ‘Cour de cassation’ – France’s highest appeals court – said her firing “constituted discrimination based on religious convictions and must be declared invalid.”
Hijab ban squeezes Russian Muslims
A recent ban on the wearing of hijab in Russia’s southern region of Stavropol is squeezing the Muslim population in the area, forcing many to send their daughters to neighboring districts to be able to wear the outfit or give them home schooling.
Frenchman convicted of veil assault
A Frenchman who ripped a Muslim woman’s veil off her face as she strolled in a fairground was Wednesday given a five-month suspended prison sentence and ordered to compensate his victim.
The 30-year-old man, who admitted charges of aggravated assault, had justified the September 2012 attack at the time as an attempt to uphold a controversial law banning women from wearing niqabs, face-covering veils, in public.
That defence was thrown out by public prosecutors, who accused him of acting as a vigilante and carrying out an assault motivated by his victim’s religious faith.
The man, who was not publicly identified on the request of his lawyers, was also convicted of presenting a false identity to police.
The incident in the western city of Nantes was the latest in a series triggered by France’s controversial ban on the wearing of full face veils in public, which came into force in April 2011.
Spanish court overturns veil ban
A Spanish court has overturned a city’s ban on wearing face-covering Islamic veils in municipal buildings, saying it infringes religious liberties.
In 2010, Lleida, in the northeastern region of Catalonia, became the first town in Spain to impose such a ban. It was temporarily suspended by a regional court following an appeal by a Muslim association but then later upheld.
Spain’s Supreme Court on Thursday accepted a second appeal and said the city was not entitled to order such a ban. It said that in line with Spanish and European rulings, such a prohibition must be based on a law, which does not exist in Spain at present.
The Lleida ban was largely symbolic since only about 3 percent of its population is Muslim and very few wear such garments.
Manuel Valls’ double standard on religious headwear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hERkZGLl_L4
Via Loonwatch, here is French interior minister Manuel Valls demonstrating the double standard he applies to religious headwear, in a video put together by the Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France.
Leicester: Thug spat on woman wearing hijab
A thug spat at a woman in the street apparently because she was wearing an Islamic head scarf. Police have appealed for help tracing the man, who targeted the woman in Humberstone Road, near Leicester city centre.
The 20-year-old woman was walking near to the St Matthews service station when she noticed three young men approaching her. One of them spat on her as they passed by and the three began laughing as they walked away.
Officers have released a CCTV image of three people they want to trace. The incident happened shortly before 1pm on Monday, February 4.
OC settles with ACLU to allow head scarves for Muslim defendants
After six years of litigation, Orange County settled a religious discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of a Muslim woman who was forced to remove her traditional head scarf while she was in a courthouse holding cell, the ACLU announced today.
Orange County officials will no longer require Muslim women in custody to remove their head scarf, known as a hijab, said attorney Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
Said plaintiff Souhair Khatib of Anaheim: “I praise Allah and thank Him that I live in a country where I can practice my religion freely. While not everyone understands Islam or what it requires of me, I’m grateful that the U.S. government protects my right to fulfill my duty to Allah, whether at work, on a public street or, yes, even in a sheriff’s holding facility.”
Law enforcement officers will be trained about ordering Muslim women to remove hijabs, and the county will pay $85,000 in damages, fees and court costs.
Schools superintendent refuses to cancel meeting attacking hijab as ‘a catalyst for Islamic terrorism’
The notice in the Fairfax Station Patch on Tuesday was brief, but to Laurie Jaghlit it felt like a punch in the gut.
At the next meeting of Republican Women of Clifton, a guest speaker would discuss “the treatment of women in Islamic society and how she believes the Hijab is a catalyst for Islamic terrorism.” The Feb. 20 meeting would take place at Fairview Elementary School, five miles from Jaghlit’s house.
Jaghlit, a 52-year-old grandmother who raised nine children in Fairfax Station and Herndon, wears the hijab, or Islamic head covering. She had heard about talks like this in other parts of the country but had never confronted the issue so close to home. “If that’s not hateful and inciteful speech, I don’t know what is,” she said. “This is a diverse area. You’d think that hopefully we’d be beyond this.”
On Thursday, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations contacted Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack D. Dale and asked him to rescind approval for the group to use the school. In an e-mail that CAIR shared with The Washington Post, Dale denied the request, saying, “After school hours, anyone may rent the public facilty.”