Category Archives: Hijab

French women’s groups protest FIFA decision to endorse hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Three French women’s organizations have expressed concern and disappointment with world soccer body FIFA’s endorsement of a proposal to lift the ban on women players wearing a hijab, an Islamic hair dress, on the pitch.

“To accept a special dress code for women athletes not only introduces discrimination among athletes but is contrary to the rules governing sport movement, setting a same dress code for all athletes without regard to origin or belief,” the three organizations said in an open letter to FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

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Muslim woman fined for driving while wearing veil in Brittany – but police say it was purely a safety issue

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A woman in Brittany was slapped with a €35 fine after police spotted her driving her car wearing a full-face veil.

The woman, who was visiting family in the north-west coastal town of Saint-Brieuc, was wearing the face-covering niqab, reported daily newspaper 20 Minutes.

Police stopped the woman who “seemed hesitant in her driving,” said local police spokesman Laurent Dufour. “On closer inspection, they realized she was veiled,” he said.

“This is an issue of skill, safety and visibility,” said Dufour. He compared driving with a full face veil to driving a car with ice on the windscreen, eating a sandwich or smoking a cigarette.

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‘Hijab rule: what took so long?’ Quebec newspaper backs right of women prison staff to wear headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Montreal Gazette has an editorial supporting the Quebec government’s decision to allow Muslim women prison staff to wear the headscarf:

Hijab rule: what took so long?

When the Quebec government announced it will reasonably accommodate female prison guards who choose to wear hijabs – the traditional Muslim head scarf – the Parti Québécois called the decision crazy.

What is crazy about this matter – apart from the fact that it became an issue in the first place – is that it took four years to be resolved after a discrimination complaint was filed with the Quebec human-rights commission by a prison-guard trainee who had been forbidden to wear a hijab.

Considering that there was never any restriction on inmates wearing hijabs, maintaining a ban on the garment for guards would have meant the prisoners had more rights than the jailers.

Now that would indeed have been crazy.

CAIR: new Army policy will allow JROTC hijabs, turbans

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In October, the Washington-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization wrote to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta after a 14-year-old Muslim student at Ravenwood High School in Brentwood, Tenn., was forced to transfer out of a JROTC class when her commanding officers told her she could not wear hijab while marching in the September homecoming parade.

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Quebec government denounced by opposition for allowing Muslim prison workers to wear headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sondos AbdelatifThe Quebec government, which said Tuesday it will allow Muslim women working in provincial jails to wear a head scarf, has been accused by the Opposition of caving in to an “excessive” demand.

The Quebec Public Security Department passed the new rule after reaching a deal with Quebec’s human rights commission, following a complaint made four years ago. The ministry chose to enforce what it calls an “accommodation” rather than take the matter to the provincial human rights tribunal.

The Parti Québécois lambasted the government Tuesday for caving in to this “excessive” demand. “This is completely unacceptable,” said PQ critic for secularism issues Carole Poirier. “The guards are state employees and should not wear any conspicuous religious symbols, especially not in a jail where the neutrality of the state should be obvious.”

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Former UKIP parliamentary candidate criticises Farage over proposal to ditch veil ban policy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abhijit Pandya (2)Yesterday’s Guardian interview with UKIP leader Nigel Farage, in which he stated that he intended to re-examine his party’s manifesto commitment to “tackle extremist Islam by banning the burqa or veiled niqab in public buildings and certain private buildings”, and didn’t personally support such a ban, hasn’t gone down too well with some people.

Over at the Mail‘s Right Minds blog (edited by Simon Heffer) we find former prominent UKIP member Abhijit Pandya upholding the view that a ban is justified because the veil is “a deliberate political statement whose meanings any free democratic society, least of all one that pretends to believe in women’s freedom, should consistently and unapologetically challenge”. Pandya continues:

That the one time UKIP leader Lord Pearson had the courage to recognise the political necessity of confronting this political issue, was a break from the normal political apathy towards protecting our culture. That Nigel Farage is considering abandoning this commitment ought to force us to ask whether there is any courage left amongst our politicians to fight for our cultural heritage and gender equality.

This criticism of Farage as having gone “soft on Islam” echoes recent comments by another ex-UKIP member, Paul Weston of the British Freedom Party.

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FIFA endorsement of hijab proposal may end dispute with Iran and Muslim women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

World soccer body FIFA has endorsed a proposal to lift a controversial ban on women wearing a hijab in a move that brings closer a resolution to demands by religious female Islamic soccer players that they be allowed to wear a headdress in line with their interpretation of their faith.

At its executive committee meeting in Tokyo this weekend, FIFA decided to submit to the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which governs the rules of association soccer, the proposal put forward by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a half-brother of Jordanian King Abdullah.

IFAB is expected to discuss the proposal that calls for the sanctioning of a safe, velcro-opening headscarf for players and officials at its next scheduled meeting on March 3.

The FIFA executive committee’s endorsement follows an earlier approval of the AFC proposal that resulted from a workshop convened in October in Amman by Prince Ali that was attended by prominent soccer executives, women players and coaches, including head of FIFA’s medical committee Michel D’Hooghe, AFC vice president Moya Dodd, members of FIFA’s women committee and representatives of the soccer bodies of Jordan, Bahrain, Iran and England.

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 19 December 2011

Hind Ahmas faces prison sentence for refusing to remove veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hind Ahmas and Kenza DriderA 32-year-old woman, Hind Ahmas, has been sentenced to 15 days of “citizenship service” after she was caught wearing a full-face veil in public and refused to remove it.

Hind Ahmas says she will not obey the court’s ruling and refuses to remove her veil. She risks a two-year prison sentence and a €30,000 fine, if she does not perform her citizenship service, which includes classes on French Republican values, Le Figaro reports.

Ahmas heard her sentence on the pavement in front of the courthouse in Paris because she refused to remove her veil to face the judges.

Her lawyer Gilles Devers says Ahmas is going to appeal and said that the French ban on the veil was illegal, AFP reports. The judge however insists her lawyer cannot appeal her decision because it is not a fine.

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Canada: face veils banned for citizenship oaths

Posted on by Bob Pitt

LEBANON MPSThe government is placing a ban on face coverings such as niqabs for people swearing their oath of citizenship, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Monday. The ban takes effect immediately.

As a result, Muslim women will have to remove their niqabs or any other face-covering garments, such as burkas, before they can recite the oath of citizenship to become Canadians. Citizenship judges will be directed to enforce the rules at ceremonies over which they preside.

It’s a “public declaration that you are joining the Canadian family and it must be taken freely and openly,” he said, calling it “frankly, bizarre” that women were allowed to wear face veils while they swear their citizenship oaths.

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