Category Archives: State Oppression

55% of public favour complete ban on niqab, poll finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Channe 4 ComRes niqab poll

British people are broadly opposed to the niqab – the full-face veil which shows only the wearer’s eyes – being worn in any public place, exclusive research for Channel 4 News reveals.

An exclusive ComRes poll for Channel 4 News showed that more than half of the public believe women should not be allowed to wear the niqab in public – with 55 per cent backing an outright ban similar to the one in France.

An even greater proportion, 81 per cent, say they support a ban on wearing the niqab in certain public places, such as schools, courts or hospitals.

Continue reading →

ACLU leads call for federal investigation of NYPD mosque surveillance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NYPD Muslim surveillanceA coalition of 125 civil rights, religious and community groups has written to the Department of Justice, calling for a federal investigation into the blanket surveillance of mosques and other Muslim outlets by the New York Police Department (NYPD).

The coalition, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), is calling on the attorney general, Eric Holder, to use his powers to launch a federal civil rights investigation into NYPD practices. Once any investigation is completed, the Department of Justice could, if it chose, take civil legal action to put a stop to the controversial surveillance dragnet.

“For over a decade, the NYPD has engaged in unlawful religious profiling and suspicionless surveillance of Muslims in New York City,” the letter says. “The NYPD’s biased policing practices hurt not only Muslims, but all communities who rightfully expect that law enforcement will serve and protect America’s diverse population equally, without discrimination.”

Continue reading →

Diverse group protests against PQ’s values charter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Montreal anti-Charter protestSeveral hundred protesters took to Montreal streets again Sunday to express their opposition to the PQ’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values, legislation that would ban provincial workers from wearing certain symbols of religious adherence at work.

The march was organized by a group that called itself “Together against the Xenophobic Charter” and attracted demonstrators from a wide swathe of the political and demographic spectrum, including anarchists, devout Muslims, Jews and people of many other stripes.

“I’m here against the charter because it’s depriving people of their right to human expression,” said demonstrator Norman Simon. “It doesn’t matter if you’re an anarchist, a separatist, a Jew, a Muslim, a Canadian, a Communist, I don’t care. But what I do care about is deprivation of rights. There’s the right to choose in this world and the Marois government isn’t honouring that, so we have to insist on co-existence,” said Simon.

Continue reading →

Canadian actor apologises for derogatory comments about Muslim women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Quebec veteran actress and film personality Denise Filiatrault apologized Thursday night on Facebook and Twitter for derogatory comments she made about Muslim women who wear hijabs in an interview Tuesday on radio station 98.5 with Paul Arcand.

“Some of the words I used to describe veiled women … were clearly inappropriate and went beyond my thinking,” wrote Filiatrault, 82. “I apologize to anyone who was offended. I’ve always been very colourful in my way of expressing myself but I admit that this debate requires a more measured choice of words.”

Continue reading →

De Blasio tells Muslims he’ll end broad NYPD spying if elected

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims for Bill de BlasioNEW YORK — Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio told a group of Muslim supporters Wednesday that they won’t have to live in fear of being under constant surveillance if he’s elected mayor.

As WCBS 880’s Jim Smith reported, de Blasio, the front-runner in the Nov. 5 general election, said that, on his watch, NYPD surveillance tactics would only be authorized to follow up on specific leads and that the police force would be under the supervision of a new inspector general.

“The efforts of surveillance have to be based on specifically specific information, and obviously you need to go through a careful vetting process,” de Blasio said during a rally at Columbus Park in Downtown Brooklyn.

Continue reading →

Québec inclusif replies to Janette Bertrand

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Quebec writer and feminist Janette Bertrand has published (in four different newspapers) an open letter “To the women of Quebec”, co-signed by 19 other women (“the Janettes” as they have become known), which bizarrely claims that the proposed law banning the hijab is equivalent to the law granting women the right to vote. The letter reads:

All my life I have fought for equality between men and women and I have always thought that if we want to keep this equality we have to be vigilant. At this point the principle of gender equality seems to me to have been compromised in the name of freedom of religion. I would like to remind you that men always and still today use religion in order to dominate women, to put them in their place, that is to say below them.

Faced with the prospect of a step backwards I feel the need to speak out. So I agree that there should be a charter of Quebec values ​​– often rightly called the charter of secularism – and that the government should legislate. In this regard, we would never have had the right to vote, we would still be under the domination of men and the clergy, if the government of the time had not legislated. At that time, I recall, many men and women did not want this law, yet without the right to vote, where would we be today?

Continue reading →

Polish Muslims drop Eid sacrifice amid protests, halal ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Poland’s Muslim community decided Tuesday to refrain from the ancient tradition of animal sacrifice for the Eid al-Adha holiday amid protests by animal rights activists and a controversial ban on halal slaughter.

“For the first time in hundreds of years, there was no ritual slaughter here today for the Eid feast,” Michal Adamowicz, a spokesman for the community, said Tuesday in the Muslim Tatar village of Bohoniki, eastern Poland.

The country’s top Muslim leader, Mufti Tomasz Miskiewicz, said his community was suffering a “witch hunt” as activists protested against halal slaughter near a small wooden mosque in the village, where other Muslims appeared ready to slaughter sheep.

Continue reading →

Moscow: Nationalist mob in anti-migrant riot

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Massive rioting in Moscow after migrant accused of killing local

Moscow is reeling from its worst bout of ethnic unrest in three years after the alleged murder of a young Muscovite by a foreign immigrant last week.

Nationalist mobs rampaged through the streets of a southern suburb on Sunday after the murder of 25-year-old Yegor Sherbakov, chanting “Muslims are the shame of Russia.” The gang turned over cars, blocked streets and fought running battles with riot police late into the night.

Continue reading →

NYPD Muslim spying program does not exist, City claims in lawsuit response

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A lawyer for New York City on Monday denied that the NYPD has a surveillance program to spy on Muslims.

Responding to an ACLU lawsuit claiming religious discrimination that seeks to force police to turn over surveillance records, city lawyer Peter Farrell claimed “there is no Muslim surveillance program. … I 100 percent disagree that there was ever a Muslim surveillance program.”

Continue reading →