A former sales assistant at Dunnes Stores has claimed she wanted to work her rostered hours but could not do so as she was not permitted to wear a hijab at work.
Loreta Tavoraite (35) of Parknamore, Ballincollig, Co Cork, has brought a case for unfair dismissal against Dunnes Stores (head office) at South Great Georges Street, Dublin. Ms Tavoraite, who is originally from Lithuania, began working at Dunnes Stores, Ballincollig, Co Cork on July 26th, 2007.
California employers face new restrictions against shunting Sikh and Muslim workers to backroom jobs out of public view based on their wearing of turbans, beards and hijabs, under a law signed Saturday by Gov. Jerry Brown.
“This bill, AB 1964, makes it very clear that wearing any type of religious clothing or hairstyle, particularly such as Sikhs do, that that is protected by law and nobody can discriminate against you because of that,” Brown told some 400 Sikhs and supporters at a rally of the North American Punjabi Assn. on the steps of the Capitol.
A Muslim protester is calling for revision of the frisking process at the Houston Police Department after she said she was stripped of her religious headscarf during a recent arrest this month while rallying for janitor wages.
The incident highlights the varying policies local police agencies have regulating when religious head coverings are allowed during the arresting and booking process. It also shows the fine line law enforcement must straddle when trying to respect one’s faith while ensuring that people who are arrested do no harm to themselves or others.
The Daily Mail reports that a drunken couple of Polish origin, Beata Jopek and her partner Maciej Matysniak, racially abused two hijab-wearing Muslim women, Hana Farah and Ithil Ibrahim, on a Leeds-Sheffield train.
It was Matysniak who first approached the two women and told them: “Shut the f*** up”, why are you so “f****** loud, aren’t you embarrassed about how loud you are? You can’t even speak English.”
Jopek then told the women to “go back to your own country”, screaming “no-one wants you here, you are f****** disgusting”. She shouted at one of them: “Take that f****** thing off, a white person wouldn’t do what you are doing.” She ripped the headscarf from one of the women and when restrained by a guard said: “If I lose the baby I’m going to kill the black b****.”
A national Muslim civil rights advocacy organization today condemned a proposal by Parti Québécois (PQ) leader Pauline Marois to ban the Muslim headscarf and other religious-based attire in provincial government offices if the PQ forms government after upcoming September elections.
The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) decried the remarks made Tuesday by Madame Marois at a campaign stop in Trois Riviere that, under a PQ government, Muslim women who wear the hijab would be barred from participating in the Quebec civil service. The PQ says other “overt religious symbols” would likewise be banned, while the Catholic crucifix would remain in Quebec’s National Assembly.
“Many Muslim women regard the hijab as an important and mandatory practice in their faith. The proposed exclusion of a targeted minority of women from the Quebec civil service under a PQ government undermines religious freedom and the democratic values of both Quebec and Canada. The PQ is once again using populist rhetoric and parochial ideas to advance their electoral strategy,” said CAIR-CAN Human Rights Officer Julia Williams.
Pauline Marois is promising to end Quebec’s reasonable accommodation debate if she is elected premier on Sept. 4.
With a new Quebec Charter of Secularism, a Parti Quebecois government would seek to strike a balance between protecting the province’s values and allowing for different cultures to interact.
Under the proposed charter, civil servants would be barred from wearing any religious symbols, including the controversial wear of the hijab. The law would also prohibit citizens from refusing to be served by a member of the opposite sex.
“In Quebec, the state will be neutral. That is absolutely important. Next, the equality between men and women is a value that is not negotiable,” said Marois, at a campaign stop in Trois-Riveries.
Despite the rhetoric, the party leader said that Quebec’s cultural symbols would not be impacted, including Christmas trees and the crucifix that has hung in the National Assembly since 1936. “We’re not denying our past,” said Marois.
A former Disneyland restaurant employee sued Walt Disney Co on Monday for harassment and religious discrimination, saying she was fired because she wanted to wear a Muslim head scarf at work.
Imane Boudlal, a 28-year-old Muslim, worked as a hostess at the Storytellers Cafe, a restaurant inside Disney’s Grand California Hotel & Spa at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, according to a complaint filed in federal court.
Two years into the job, Boudlal asked permission to wear a hijab, a head scarf worn by Muslim women, while at work. She said she offered to wear a scarf that matched the colors of her uniform or featured a Disney logo.
According to her lawsuit, Disney managers denied her request, saying it would violate the company’s policy for how employees “look” while on the job. Among the restrictions, the policy prohibits visible tattoos and fingernails that exceed a quarter of an inch, the lawsuit said.
Boudlal was given the choice of working in a back area, away from customers, or wearing a fedora-style hat on top of her head scarf. When Boudlal refused, she was fired, the lawsuit states.
Libération interviews Lionnel Luca, a member of the right-wing anti-migrant parliamentary group Droite populaire.
Luca states that the continent of Europe is on the way towards demographic extinction as a result of immigration and he poses the question: “in 2050 or 2010 will Europe still be a democracy with the values of secularism, of respect for women’s rights?” He asserts: “For twenty years a fundamentalist conquering Islamism has tried to impose its way of life on us.” And although “France is resisting, with the ban on the headscarf in schools, on the veil”, other countries are unfortunately less vigorous in their defence of European civilisation.
Asked if this isn’t a catastrophist vision, Luca goes on to claim that two-thirds of the meat in France is ritually slaughtered (an editorial comment notes that the official figure is 14%) and says that he objects to “paying a tax for a religion that is not mine”. He concludes: “The word ‘Islamisation’ seems too strong to you? I am inclined to say to you: let’s talk about this in twenty years when you will be wearing a veil.”
A Muslim family representing England in the European Chess Championships taking place in Austria allege to have been the victim of Islamophobia, racism and even physical hate crime. 13-year-old Yusuf Bin-Suhayl was attacked and left bleeding by the mother of a fellow English competitor.
The family have had a police escort to their hotel and tournament. Father Sohale Rahman has made numerous complaints to the English Chess Federation who is overseeing the competition but to no avail. Throughout the competition the Rahman family who have three children representing England have been subjected to bullying and hate crime. Mother, Tomasina Contu, was spat on when she asked the father of one English competitor not to bully her son! It is of no coincidence that Tomasina wears a hijab.
MARSEILLE, France — Though it was almost midnight, streets were full of Muslim families taking a stroll after breaking the Ramadan fast with a late dinner. As two police officers drove by a storefront recycled as the Grand Sunna Mosque, they noticed a woman wearing flowing black robes and a full-face veil.
The police officers alighted from their patrol car and challenged the woman about her veil, which has been illegal in France since April 2011. After an angry exchange, police said later, the woman shouted that she would not abide by the anti-veil law, and a youth told police that they had no business patrolling the neighborhood and accosting its predominantly Muslim residents.
The confrontation quickly escalated into a shoving match, with several dozen young bystanders joining in and carloads of police reinforcements speeding up to lend a hand. Before long, it erupted into what was described in the National Assembly in Paris as a riot, during which a female police officer was bitten on the arm and two of her male colleagues were bashed and bruised.
The sudden clash, which took place July 24 in Marseille, was the most serious instance of resistance to the veil ban during its 16 months of enforcement, according to police. Although it subsided almost as quickly as it flared, the outburst focused national attention on simmering resentment over the ban among France’s most militant and tradition-minded Muslims.