Category Archives: Women

Toronto police launch hate-crime investigation after assault on woman wearing hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Toronto hate-crime suspect
Security camera images of the man wanted in hate/bias assault investigation

Toronto police have launched a hate-crime investigation after a Muslim woman was spat upon last week outside a plaza in the city’s northeast, just hours after counterterrorism investigators dismantled a local al-Qaeda-linked plot to derail a Via passenger train.

The suspect also said something to the 18-year-old victim, who was wearing a hijab, but she could not understand him due to a language barrier, police said.

“Obviously there’s no motivation that we can determine other than the fact that the woman was wearing a hijab,” said Det.-Sgt. Jim Gotell of 33 Division, noting the victim had done “absolutely nothing” to provoke the assault, and there were no overt signs that the suspect suffered from a mental illness. “The only logical assumption we can make at this point in time is [it was] because she was wearing a hijab, and it was a hate crime.”

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US panel slams Europe’s ‘aggressive secularism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

USCIRF Annual Report 2013A US panel criticized Western European countries Tuesday for “aggressive secularism” as it released a report on religious freedom that took aim at laws banning full-face veils in public.

For the first time, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom — whose members are appointed by the government — included a chapter on the region in its annual review of tolerance of other faiths around the world.

Because Western Europe generally has a very good record, “it’s easy to overlook the fact that there are some questions and problematic issues emerging there” related to religious dress and customs, commission chair Katrina Lantos Swett told reporters. “In some countries a very aggressive secularism is putting people of religious faith in uncomfortable and difficult positions.”

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Danish supermarket rejects work placement for woman wearing headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Netto logoA 26-year-old Muslim was told not to apply for a job at Netto because she wears a head scarf, reports Fyens Stiftidende.

Nada Fraije is an unemployed social worker from Odense who recently approached Netto about the possibility of a work placement.

But a Netto representative told her not to bother as its parent company, Dansk Supermarked, has for the past ten years forbidden employees who interact with customers from wearing anything on their heads, unless it was necessary for hygiene purposes.

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Female converts to Islam face negative stereotyping

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Converts to Islam are as diverse as the rest of America, racially and ethnically, as well as in their interpretations of the faith. Some female converts wear a headscarf, some don’t. What they share is the perception from others that they are incapable of making their own choice in a decision that involved substantial spiritual wrestling.”

Omar Sacirbey reports.

Religion News Service, 29 April 2013

Australian Muslim teenager claims she was held against her will by service station worker in perceived racist attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Teenager Hafsah Negussie claims she was held against her will at a Brisbane service station after a worker confused company policy and refused to serve her.

Ms Negussie, a Muslim who wears a veil while in public, said she tried to pay for her goods and go, but claimed the attendant locked the doors when she attempted to leave.

The incident, which occurred at a BP service station on Brisbane’s southside in December last year, was reported to police but no official report was filed until Ms Negussie came forward again in April.

“I’m Australian, I was born and raised here, I know my rights. It’s so horrific,” Ms Negussie said.

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Berkeley conference adopts resolution condemning Islamophobia in France

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berkeley Islamophobia conference 2013

Resolution of the 4th Annual International Conference on Islamophobia at UC-Berkeley in Support of French Muslims and Opposing Islamophobic Discourses in France

Whereas; for the last ten years, Islamophobia has increased in an alarming way all over the world.

Whereas; every year, the Annual International Conference on Islamophobia at UC-Berkeley confirms the global perverse and continuing problem of Islamophobia.

Whereas; France is one of the countries in the world where racism against Muslims has increased the most. In the name of secularism, women’s rights, the defense of Republican values, and the struggle against terrorism, Islamophobic discourses affect all spheres of the French society (politics, media, intellectual debates, economics, etc).

Whereas; the French state itself – the judicial, legislative and executive powers – from the higher to the bottom levels of the French public administration has become a promoter of Islamophobia. The March 2004 law against the veil is at the heart of public legitimization of discriminatory practices against Muslims.

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Leyton Sharia Council defends itself after Panorama exposé

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BBC Panorama Secrets of Britain's Sharia Councils

An Islamic council which mediates on Muslim marriages has defended itself after a member of staff was secretly filmed telling a woman complaining of domestic violence to only go to the police as a “last resort”.

The Islamic Sharia Council, in Francis Road, Leyton, was investigated by the BBC’s Panorama documentary series this week following allegations it was ruling on cases it had no legal authority to get involved in.

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Muslim garb gets Houston student singled out at festival

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Worldfest

When a fire alarm went off Saturday at the Westchase Marriott during a seminar he was holding for Houston WorldFest, Hunter Todd decided to do some investigating.

After the 200 attendees filed back into the meeting room when the hotel gave an all-clear, Todd, the chief executive officer for the 46th annual WorldFest film festival, approached a woman sitting in the front of the room who was wearing traditional Muslim covering.

Todd asked to search her backpack. He said he was “super polite” to the woman, who opened the backpack. She had just a few water bottles inside. That’s when another attendee, University of Houston student Mike Rudd, confronted Todd and accused him of racially profiling the woman.

Rudd, a UH senior, described the woman as a fellow student at the university, where he is studying film and media production.

On his Facebook page, Rudd states he asked Todd why he had demanded to search the woman’s bag, and that Todd told him, “because she is Muslim and a suspicious character, now sit down.”

Houston Chronicle, 23 April 2013

See also “W[t]F? WorldFest founder/CEO Hunter Todd searches Fest attendee’s bag ‘because she is a Muslim'”, Houston Chronicle, 22 April 2013