Islam & Info reports that a Muslim couple who are on holiday in Annecy in south-eastern France were racially abused and assaulted by a group of skinheads on Saturday night.
24 heures adds that a Swiss man, described by the Public Prosecutor’s office as belonging to an “extreme right-wing group”, has been arrested in connection with the attack and charged with “intentional violence while drunk”. He has been remanded in custody and will appear in court in October.
The pregnant woman who was beaten last Friday in Farstavägen in southern Stockholm, reportedly because she wore a headscarf, has been attacked again, according to Stockholm police.
The woman was attacked in Haninge in southern Stockholm by several men on Thursday, according to a report in the local Mitti.se newspaper. “There were several offenders who attacked her with punches. They told her to withdraw her police report,” said Towe Hägg at Stockholm police. According to Hägg, there are no witnesses to the incident. The woman however sustained visible injuries and was taken to hospital. She was able to leave the same day.
A judge has refused to allow a Muslim woman to stand trial in a full-length burqa as he said it would be possible for another person to enter the dock pretending to be her.
Judge Peter Murphy told the 21-year-old defendant from Hackney in east London that he would not allow her to enter a plea in court until she showed her face.
Muslim organizations in Quebec are criticizing Agnès Maltais, the provincial minister responsible for the Status of Women, for asking the Canadian government to bar some invited guests from entering the country as speakers at a Muslim youth conference. Maltais wrote a letter to her federal counterpart, Kellie Leitch, calling the speakers “radical Islamists” who don’t respect equality between men and women.
On its website, the conference organizers – a group calling itself Collectif 1ndépendance – says that it will invite international speakers to “share knowledge on religious affairs with young Quebec Muslims.” The event is set to take place at Montreal’s Palais des congrès Sept. 7-8.
President of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, says Maltais should have contacted conference organizers before going to the federal government. “They jumped to conclusions before listening to both sides,” said Elmenyawi. “I think [Maltais] should have tried to have a meeting with them, and try to get an explanation to what she has read, and the concerns that she has about the treatment of women and the fact about education of women.”
The Quebec government could have a difficult time trying to impose its proposed ban on religious symbols in provincially funded facilities, angry citizens tell QMI Agency.
At a daycare centre near Montreal, close to half of the centre’s 15 workers wear a hijab. They said they will defy any future hijab ban. “When I came to Quebec, 10 years ago, I thought I was settling in a free country,” Zakia Maali said. “I feel like the government is telling to stop everything I am doing and return home.”
QMI Agency learned on Monday that the Parti Quebecois is crafting legislation that would take away the right of citizens to wear religious signs and symbols such as visible crosses, yarmulkes and hijabs in public institutions such as hospitals, schools and daycares.
Ipswich Muslims have defended their faith in the wake of Rise Up Australia Party candidate Anthony Mackin’s calls to eradicate mosques and ban the burka.
Mr Mackin, a bible teacher, is the Blair candidate for a party that has banning the burka as one of its key policies. In an interview with The QT yesterday, Mr Mackin explained why he was opposed to burkas.
“Part of the problem is the obvious one, that you can’t identify who is underneath it,” he said. “I’ve seen recently on the internet that there have been suicide bombers disguising themselves in burkas.
“When we go into a petrol station the first thing a motorcyclist is asked to do is remove the helmet before the cashier will receive payment for the bill, for security purposes. Everybody is required to do this…but the people who are not assimilating to our laws and customs are not.”
A Muslim woman who was asked to remove a traditional face covering, or niqab, by a shopping mall guard, has filed a lawsuit claiming discrimination against the guard and the mall’s owners.
Wakeelah Salaam, of Elizabeth, has filed a lawsuit against Bridgewater Commons mall, its owner, General Growth Properties, its mall security vendor, IPC International Corporation, and Marc Krause, a former mall guard.
A pregnant woman wearing a headscarf was harassed and assaulted in a south Stockholm suburb at the weekend, prompting a call on Monday urging woman to bear headscarves in show of support, regardless of their religious affiliation.
The woman was hospitalized with a concussion late on Friday night after having her head slammed into a car and passing out, she told Sveriges Television (SVT). “She was wearing a headscarf and she thinks her faith is the reason she was assaulted,” Klas Jensgård of Stockholm’s southern district police told the TT news agency.
No arrests have been made in the attack, which took place shortly before midnight in the south Stockholm suburb of Farsta.
Speaking with Sveriges Radio (SR), a friend of the pregnant woman explained that the victim had her headscarf ripped off during the incident. Several other women have since come forward with their own accounts of being harassed because they wear headscarves.
The incident, which also involved racist taunts, has sparked a call for all women to don headscarves in a show of solidarity with the pregnant woman.
The Huffington Post has a shocking account by Aissetou, a 16-year-old school student, who was attacked by racists in the western Parisian suburb of Trappes.
See also “French teen ‘attacked for wearing Muslim veil'”, The Local, 15 August 2013
As the Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France points out, this is not the first time that a young Muslim woman has been attacked in Trappes.
The Boston Globe reports on the case of Iman Abdulrazzak, the young Muslim woman who was asked to remove her headscarf during a bar exam:
Marilyn Wellington, executive director of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners, called the mix-up “very unfortunate” and said the board takes responsibility for the mistake.
She said the board may consider revising its rule requiring prior authorization for religious headwear. The rule was established to prevent people from concealing notes or other information that could be used to cheat on the exam, she said, not to inhibit religious practice.