Category Archives: Women

‘Secularist’ irrationality over the veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The level of argument from secularists denouncing the niqab has reached a new low recently. Here, for example, is Joan Smith writing in the Independent on Sunday:

I’m aghast at the prospect of being treated by a health professional in a niqab. Patients often have to discuss intimate matters with GPs and nurse-practitioners, from sexual health to domestic violence. If someone doesn’t trust me enough to let me see her face, I’m hardly going to feel comfortable about her carrying out an intimate procedure such as a cervical smear. Nor is it easy to imagine a man discussing the symptoms of prostate cancer with a health professional whose idea of “modesty” doesn’t allow her to expose her nose.

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Tony Parsons on tolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tony ParsonsBack in June, Tony Parsons wrote a column for the Daily Mirror in which he parroted the ignorant view expressed by Andrew Gilligan that there had been no significant upsurge in hate-crime against the Muslim community in the aftermath of the horrific killing in Woolwich on 22 May. Parsons assured his readers: “The ‘anti-Muslim backlash’ is somewhere between a grotesque exaggeration and a plain old lie. The British are a civilised, polite, tolerant people – and even after the hideous murder of young Lee Rigby, that is what we remain.”

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Don’t follow France’s burqa ban. It has curbed liberty and justice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Join me in a criminal court in suburban Paris on almost any weekday and I’ll show you exactly where national debates about female face coverings end up.

Ever since France introduced its “burqa ban” in 2011, there has been a constant stream of wretched cases involving the handful of Muslims who choose to wear such garments. Not only are perfectly upstanding women being fined for their choice of dress, principally the full-body niqab, which leaves a slit for the eyes, but an increasing number of defendants are being tried for attacking them.

One case involves two self-styled “patriotic vigilantes” who targeted a pregnant 21-year-old in the commuter town of Argenteuil, north-west of Paris, in June. The new law persuaded the men to shout racist insults before putting the woman in hospital, where she lost her baby. Another three reported cases on the same council estate over the course of just one month this summer saw full-veil wearers assaulted as their attackers shouted: “Dirty Arab, dirty Muslim.”

Those calling for a veil ban in Britain have clearly ignored such depressingly routine cases. They do not realise how the legislation introduced by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has not only stigmatised Muslim women, but somehow legitimised physical attacks on them. The ban in France is a hateful assault on basic freedoms, one that has been seized on by an unlikely alliance of rightwing politicians and feminists.

Excellent article by Nabila Ramdani in the Observer, 22 September 2013

UKIP no longer proposes ‘burqa ban’ law

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UKIP logoUKIP deputy leader Paul Nuttall has stated that his party no longer proposes a state ban on the Muslim veil in some public places.

Nuttall told the Huffington Post yesterday that “our view is pretty much that if people need to see your face, then quite frankly it should be shown” – for example in a bank – but that the party would not bring in legislation to impose a ban, because they are “libertarians”.

Not so long ago, of course, UKIP did propose to legislate for such a ban. In its manifesto for the May 2010 general election the party pledged to “tackle extremist Islam by banning the burqa or veiled niqab in public buildings and certain private buildings”.

As Nuttall points out, that was under a different leader – namely Lord Pearson, who had close connections with the likes of Pamela Geller, the US Islamophobe who was recently banned from entering the UK because of her record of anti-Muslim hatemongering.

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‘Man tried to pull off my niqab,’ says 14-year-old

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A 14-year-old British teenager has described her horror when a man tried to pull off her face veil in the street. She told the BBC Radio four World at One programme that it had made her nervous when out and about.

The student said it was her own choice to wear the veil and neither of her parents had encouraged her to do so. She said it meant she avoided the pressures to keep up with the latest trends and look a certain way.

She spoke to the BBC’s Sima Kotecha .

BBC News, 19 September 2013

This ban does not bode well for Britain’s multicultural future

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A piece of cloth roughly 6″ x 12″ does not impede the ability of the witness to provide truthful evidence under oath in the courtroom. We must ask ourselves whether this court ruling is really about due process of the law, or about Britain’s multicultural future.”

Amani El Sehrawey analyses the wider implications of the judicial ruling that a Muslim woman must remove her niqab to give evidence in court.

Independent, 19 September 2013

Tory minister jumps on anti-niqab bandwagon

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A review is being launched into health service guidelines on full-face veils to ensure that patients always have “appropriate face-to-face contact”, it has emerged.

Health minister Dan Poulter claims face coverings can be a barrier to good communication between healthcare professionals and patients. He has ordered a review of current advice and asked regulators to devise new uniform rules.

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A ‘feminist’ attack on Muslim women, courtesy of the Daily Mail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Julie Bindel at conferenceToday’s Daily Mail – a newspaper which of course has a long history of inciting bigotry against minority communities of recent migrant origin – carries yet another contribution to the niqab “debate”.

We’ve already heard Melanie Phillips’ views on this “sinister and intimidating black-out”, as she puts it, and now we have an article headlined “Why are my fellow feminists shamefully silent over the tyranny of the veil, asks JULIE BINDEL”.

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