Category Archives: Hijab

French Football Federation bans hijab despite green light from FIFA

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FFF logoThe French Football Federation (FFF) said Friday that it would “not authorise players to wear a veil” while playing for France or in organised competitions, a day after world footballing authorities said the hijab could be worn on the pitch.

“Regarding the participation of female French national team players in international competitions on one hand, and the organisation of national competitions on the other, the French Football Federation reiterates its duty to respect the constitutional and legislative principles of secularism that prevails in our country and features in its statutes,” declared a statement from the FFF.

The FFF’s announcement came after a French MP had urged the government earlier on Friday to ban the Islamic headscarf for women soccer players.

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FIFA lifts ban on women wearing headscarves

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FIFAFootball chiefs agreed on Thursday to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves during games, clearing the way for the participation of many Muslim nations in top-flight competition.

Until the vote by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) here, players were prevented from wearing a headscarf, or hijab, at the sport’s highest level for safety reasons and on religious grounds. Critics said the ban promoted inequality at the highest level of the world’s most popular game.

AFP, 5 July 2012

See also “FIFA lift ban on Islamic headscarves”, Reuters, 5 July 2012

Update:  And “AFC says ‘right’ to lift headscarf ban”, AFP, 6 July 2012

Man who ripped off Muslim woman’s veil spared jail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ian Brazier (2)A man who ripped off a Muslim woman’s veil in a shopping centre because he thought she was “just another illegal immigrant” has been spared jail.

Ian Brazier, from Shirley, Solihull, was given a six-week sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to complete a diversity awareness course by magistrates in the town. The 26-year-old had admitted racially aggravated assault at an early hearing.

The court heard that he tore Farhana Chughtai’s niqab from her face and threw it on the floor in Solihull’s Touchwood complex on March 3 as she shopped with family.

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New study of Islamic headscarf controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Headscarf ControversyThe most controversial article of clothing of the early 21st century may be the headscarf.

In her new book, The Headscarf Controversy: Secularism and Freedom of Religion, UCSB professor Hilal Elver tackles the issue currently affecting Muslim women – and courtrooms – around the world.

Elver, a global and international studies scholar, explains the legal and historical background of wearing headscarves in public places, specifically in Turkey but also in Germany, France, and the United States.

Elver believes that due to the recent “war on terror” in the Middle East, many Western countries have banned public use of the headscarf, supposedly in the name of women’s rights. But rather than helping women, she argues, the ban has had the disastrous effect of excluding pious Muslim women from society.

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Martha Nussbaum on the new religious intolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Her latest book, The New Religious Intolerance, is a vigorous defence of the religious freedom of minorities in the face of post-9/11 Islamophobia. And by minorities she mostly means Muslims. ‘We see unreasoning fear driving a certain amount of public policy, perhaps more in Europe than in the US,’ she explains. And Europe has historical form on all this. ‘The laws that made it illegal to speak Latin in a church but left it legal to speak Latin in universities were covert forms of persecution – and not very covert at all. And you get that all over Europe. You get that in the Swiss minaret case, where a building that expresses the wish of a religious minority is suddenly illegal; you get it in Germany in those cases where nuns can teach in full habit but a teacher can’t wear a headscarf’.”

Giles Fraser talks to Martha Nussbaum.

Guardian, 30 June 2012

CAIR asks Pentagon not to use target of Muslim woman, Quran in SEAL training

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SEALs targetA prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on Pentagon officials not to use a target depicting a Muslim woman wearing a religious head scarf (hijab) and verses from the Quran in combat scenarios for training Navy SEALs at the new close quarters combat range at Joint Base Fort Story in Virginia Beach, Va.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that military facility, referred to as a “kill house,” features a number of combat scenarios, including a mosque and a movable target of a Muslim woman wearing hijab and aiming a handgun. Verses from the Quran, Islam’s revealed text, are also displayed behind the target.

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FIFA medical chief withdraws opposition to headscarves

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A campaign to allow Muslim women football players to wear headscarves was boosted on Friday when the chairman of FIFA’s medical committee said he has withdrawn his opposition.

The change of medical opinion from Michel D’Hooghe was a key step before FIFA’s law-making body could approve two scarf designs when it meets in Zurich next week. “The problems I had (with scarves) were medical, and I don’t have those problems anymore,” D’Hooghe told The Associated Press.

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Women asked to remove headscarves at some French airports

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Some French airports have begun to ask headscarf-wearing women to take off their scarves for security reasons, which has spurred criticism from Muslims in the country, who find the practice a discriminatory one.

The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) has announced that Nantes Atlantique Airport has made it obligatory for headscarf-wearing women to take off their scarves and place them in the X-ray machine along with their other belongings.

The practice was put into effect two weeks ago by the SGA, the company responsible for Nantes Atlantique Airport’s security. Women affected by the new rules requested that they be allowed to take off their headscarves in a special room staffed only by women, but the request was denied. The women were told that they must place their headscarves on the conveyor going through the X-ray machine if they wanted to avoid missing their plane.

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Mum Maroon Rafique banned from Manchester College parents’ evening… for wearing a veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Manchester CollegeA mum was turned away from a college parents’ evening – because she was wearing a veil.

Maroon Rafique was refused entry to Manchester College by senior staff who told her there was a ban on face coverings. The mum-of-two, from Whalley Range, said she was left stunned and dismayed. She had to phone husband Abdul, who attended the meeting with their 18-year-old son Awais, while she sat in the lobby of the college’s Northenden campus.

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French Muslim refused entrance to bank because she wore headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Crédit Mutuel femme voilée

On the morning of Tuesday 19 June on her way to an appointment with her financial adviser, a woman wearing the hijab was refused entry to a Crédit Mutuel branch. The reason given: the employee required her to take off her headscarf. This action resulted in great indignation and a protest outside the offices of the bank. Crédit Mutuel officials quickly issued a statement expressing their regret and apologies for the “isolated mistake”.

Ajib, 22 June 2012

See also “Pas de voile au Crédit Mutuel”, CCIF, 21 June 2012