Category Archives: Women

French minister backs football headscarf ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thierry BraillardFrance’s new sports minister Thierry Braillard has backed the French Football Federation’s decision to uphold their ban on headscarves for players despite pressure from FIFA.

Last Sunday on beIN SPORTS, FIFA president Sepp Blatter declared the FFF had no choice other than to follow his organisation’s directive that women players should be allowed to wear head coverings during official games.

The FIFA ruling is contrary to French law, however, with all signs of religious affiliation, regardless of the denomination, banned in official state-connected institutions.

“The position taken by the FFF and its president Noel Le Graet has our wholehearted support, because it would be necessary to remind Mr Blatter that the French state has declared its attachment to the values of the Republic and that Republican principles, notably the principle of an entirely secular state, are in force in sporting arenas,” the freshly appointed Braillard told RTL.

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Airport security tried to yank off Swedish Muslim’s hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Samaa SarsourA Swedish woman wearing a Muslim headscarf claims security staff at a small northern airport tugged on her hijab in public rather than take up her offer to take it off away from prying eyes.

“The female guard asked me ‘What’s on your head’,” recalled state employee Saama Sarsour, who told the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper about her treatment at Arvidsjaur airport in northern Sweden.

After the metal detector beeped, Sarsour was asked to remove the cloth. She responded by asking if the guard could first scan the rest of her body and if she could remove her scarf in a different room, not in public. “Then the woman grabbed the scarf and started yanking it,” Sarsour told SvD. “I was totally shocked.”

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‘My hell as a white Muslim living in Bristol’: Woman says she is racially abused every day

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bristol Post My Hell front pageAssaults, insults, sly remarks and threats. All have been hurled at Kelly Ziane since she converted to Islam at the tender age of 18. She was not coerced, nor did she change her religion in order to marry – she did so because she believed it was the “right” faith for her.

For a white girl from Bedminster it was a bold and radical change to make, something she has been reminded of on numerous occasions since then. But the 36-year-old mum-of-three has not wavered from Islam – she says her skin has grown thicker and her resolve stronger, even when she felt forced to take her children out of their primary school because she was racially abused by another parent.

Kelly contacted the Bristol Post after we reported on a racially motivated assault in a Bedminster shop last week.

She said: “I saw the news the other night, about the Muslim women attacked at Poundstretcher in East Street, and there was a police officer saying racist incidents are very rare in Bristol. In my experience, that’s not the case at all.

“I converted to Islam 19 years ago. I grew up in Bedminster and over the last ten years it’s got a lot worse. I don’t have enough fingers to count on my hands the number of incidents. It gets to the stage where you don’t see the point in reporting everything that happens to you. I know I should, and I would urge everyone to report hate crimes, no matter how small.

“The insults used to bother me, but over the years you get used to blocking it out and carrying on with your life. If you let it get to you, you would end up feeling so hateful towards everyone. You have to have strength, otherwise you might end up thinking I can’t do this, it’s not for me.”

Kelly said the abuse has varied over the years, from being spat at by a man who tried to pull off her headdress (hijab) on her way home from work, to being called a “Paki” and a “raghead” by women in shops, to the ignorance of being asked whether she speaks English in everyday situations.

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Helsinki clothing store bosses fined over headscarf sacking

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Managers at a Helsinki clothing store have been fined over an incident in which they fired a Muslim worker on her first day at work because she was wearing a headscarf.

Helsinki District court has fined managers at a Helsinki clothing retailer for discriminating against an employee on the basis of religion. They received 20 day-fines for sacking a Muslim worker who was told she should not wear a headscarf.

The new worker, who had been hired on a one-month contract, was fired on her first day at work when managers realised she wore a headscarf. She had been hired over the phone, and told to turn up wearing a t-shirt and denim overalls. The store manager forbid her from wearing the headscarf in the store, and after discussing the matter with a senior manager fired the new employee.

The defendants denied that their decision was discriminatory, saying that a scarf that ensured only the worker’s face was visible did not fit the company’s brand. That view was not shared by the district court, which ruled in favour of the prosecutor and fined the defendants.

YLE News, 24 March 2014

Racists abuse and assault Muslim women, try to pull off hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cousins who were born and brought up in Bristol were subjected to a verbal and physical racist attack as they shopped in Bedminster.

Both from Pakistani families, they were allegedly abused by a grandmother and at least one of her granddaughters in Poundstretcher on East Street. One was reduced to tears as she was said to be punched in the face, shoulder and neck as her attacker tried to pull her head dress off. Minutes earlier, the other cousin was called an “illegal immigrant” as she stood in a queue, minding her own business.

The crime took place between 9.30am and 10am last Thursday and Avon and Somerset police earlier released CCTV images of the prime suspect, a white woman aged in her late teens or early 20s, in a bid to track her down. The police have since asked the Bristol Post to remove the photo from this online article.

Both victims have spoken to the Post, but do not want to be named for fear of further attacks.

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Lyon demonstration against Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SONY DSC

On Saturday the Coordination contre le Racisme et l’Islamophobie organised a demonstration against Islamophobia in Lyon, to mark the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the hijab ban in French state schools.

The CRI points out that the law was the first in a series of legal restrictions on, and judicial and administrative rulings against Muslims, including the 2011 ban on the niqab, a 2013 court decision upholding the sacking of a childcare assistant who wore a headscarf to work, the adoption this year by the Senate of a bill that would extend the hijab ban to childcare workers who work at their own homes, and the prevention of hijab-wearing mothers from joining their children on school trips.

The demonstrators called for the cancellation of all Islamophobic laws.

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Colorado girls’ soccer team takes stand against hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Divine Davis tweet

Earlier this month, FIFA lifted its ban on headscarves, allowing female Muslim players to wear hijabs while playing soccer. But that didn’t stop high school soccer referees in Aurora, Colo. from prohibiting Samah Aidah to play with her head covered.

Last week in response, the Overland High School girls soccer team took an inspiring stand in support of their teammate and her freedom of religious expression by donning headscarves representative of Aidah’s hijab. With more than 40,000 retweets and favorites so far, teammate Divine Davis’ photo of the team in headscarves is making a loud statement about equality.

PolicyMic, 17 March 2014

EDL disrupts Islam Awareness Week event at Bournemouth University

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bournemouth EDL members caused a stir during the last event of Islamic Awareness Week held at Bournemouth University.

A large group of men, claiming to be from counter-terrorism think tank Quilliam, attended the talk and posed some difficult questions to converted Muslim speakers Hussein Thomas and Musa Ugandhi. However, a video uploaded to the Bournemouth EDL YouTube channel confirms that they are in fact members of the English Defence League.

Soon after the last of the two speakers had finished his address at the event, organised by BU’s Islamic Society, the group of English Defence League members entered into a heated debate with members of the society. The EDL members posed queries about female genital mutilation (FGM), sharia law and the oppression of women in regard to the hijab, the head decoration that many female Muslims wear.

Speaker Musa Ugandhi defended his religion. “What you see on the news is not from Islam,” he said. “Your disapproval is with certain cultures, it’s not Muslim culture. FGM happens in certain places in Africa and Asia, but it doesn’t just happen with Muslims; it happens with Christians as well, therefore your issue is with the culture.” One of the Bournemouth EDL members agreed, saying that FGM is wrong “no matter who does it”.

The representative recording the talk justified their presence. He said: “The reason we’ve come here today is because we’re concerned that people have come to Bournemouth University to talk about Islam and there are components of Islam that are a threat to us and we’re concerned for our children who are of the age to be in university.”

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Montreal rally unites faiths against ‘secularism’ charter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Canadians for Coexistence

With his fuchsia skullcap and sash, Catholic Bishop Thomas Dowd stood out in the crowd at Shaare Zedek Congregation on Sunday. Speaking to nearly 500 people at the synagogue in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Dowd said he purposely wore his most ostentatious outfit to the multi-faith rally against the Parti Québécois government’s proposed secular charter.

Bill 60, which would bar all public sector workers from wearing “ostentatious” religious symbols like the Muslim head scarf, Jewish skullcap or Sikh turban, died on the order paper last week when Premier Pauline Marois dissolved the National Assembly to call an election. But speakers, who included local politicians and representatives of six faiths, said that was no reason to stop protesting, since the PQ has vowed to adopt the charter if it wins a majority on April 7.

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