Category Archives: Women

Lib Dem parliamentary candidate calls for niqab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lennon Nawaz and CarrollFresh from assisting the former (but entirely unreformed) English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon to carry out a cynical rebranding exercise, and then joining his protégé in spreading inflammatory anti-Muslim rumours, Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz has now taken up the battle against the niqab.

In an article for the Daily Mail‘s RightMinds blog, Nawaz declares: “It’s time we tackled head on the genuine security concerns and social consequences of face-veiling in modern Britain.” The Mail, of course, is notorious for its PC-inspired reluctance to address that issue.

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Muslim woman bombarded with slurs at New School: suit

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The New SchoolA New Jersey Muslim woman slapped The New School with a lawsuit on Friday alleging she had to quit her job there in March after being routinely bombarded with racist slurs by co-workers – and was even ordered not to wear her Hijab to work.

Jamilah Moudiab filed a civil-rights lawsuit in Manhattan federal court that also alleges her supervisor, Monique Ngozi Nri, told her shortly after she was hired in 2011 that the Manhattan university is a “religious free zone” and that “if [she] wants to stay at The New School, [she] must not wear a headdress.”

Moudiab, who quit her job as an international student advisor in March, claims mischievous co-workers even anonymously placed a Christian cross and Rosary beads on her desk to “further castigate” her Muslim beliefs.

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Veteran Quebec politician says Qur’an is a book of ‘conquest and violence’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jean AllaireThe founder of the Action Democratique says his current party, the CAQ, should be staking out a tough stand in favour of the PQ’s proposed Charter of Values.

Jean Allaire says his views on the wearing of religious symbols are much closer to those of the PQ than those of the CAQ, which favours a ban only for civil servants in positions of authority such as judges and police officers.

Allaire told La Presse he read the Koran and concluded that it is a book about conquest and violence and bearded men wrongly use it to convince women that they should wear headscarves.

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Young Muslim women leave Prague nursing school over hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Muslim girls left a nursing secondary school in Prague as they were not permitted to wear their hijabs, being the first to have ended their studies for this reason in the Czech Republic, Czech Television (CT) said Friday. CT said the case would probably end up with the ombudsman’s office and lawyers were considering filing an anti-discrimination lawsuit.

The principal of the Prague school Ivanka Kohoutova said the school had made no mistake. She said since the law did not define the wearing of hijab, schools could create their own rules. However, human rights organisations are of the view that this is discrimination and intervention in personality rights, CT said.

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PQ government prepared to fall over beefed-up secularism charter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MONTREAL — The minority Parti Quebecois tabled a toughened secularism charter Thursday and warned that it’s prepared to go to the polls if the bill is rejected. The PQ considers the bill a confidence motion and didn’t make any compromises to appease opposition parties whose support would be needed to pass it.

“If the Liberal Party objects, this is the kind of vote that involves the confidence of the government,” house leader Stephane Bedard told the legislature. He said the secularism charter is at the heart of the government’s program.

The PQ bill would bar all public service workers from wearing conspicuous religious symbols on the job. The ban would also apply to municipalities and universities, which had a “right of withdrawal” under earlier drafts of the charter.

Bernard Drainville, the minister in charge of the secularism charter, told a news conference the bill “marks a significant milestone in our history.” He has said the charter is a logical outworking of increased separation of church and state that began in the 1960s after 200 years of church control over Quebec society.

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Municipal deputy urges Moscow ban on hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Municipal deputy of the Yakimanka District Dmitry Zakharov is going to address Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin with a request to ban wearing hijab in city. The author of the initiative answers the questions.

“I believe it is not right for any religious formation to demand special attitude. In fact, hijab is outer manifestation of such demand. It’s no good, I think we need to ban wearing it in public places: in the streets, in state and educational establishments,” Zakharov said in his interview published by the Metro daily.

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Islamophobia has surged in Quebec since Charter proposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim Council of Montreal press conference

Islamophobia has surged in Quebec since the introduction of the proposed Charter of Quebec Values, the Muslim Council of Montreal warned Tuesday, with an alarming rise in attacks, specifically against Muslim women.

Muslims made 117 complaints of verbal or physical abuse to a local anti-Islamophobia group between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, compared to a total of 25 complaints (or 3.5 complaints per month on average) in the nine-month period of January to September 2013.

This spike coincides with the kick-off of the debate on the Parti Québécois government’s proposed charter of values, which proposes to prevent public servants from wearing “ostentatious” religious symbols, including the hijab and niqab.

“Premier Marois’s introduction of the charter of values has unleashed an alarming number of xenophobic and Islamaphobic attacks,” the council’s president, Salam Elmenyawi, told a press conference.

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