“The veil is not merely a piece of ‘cloth’, but a sign of the oppression of women, control over their sexuality, submissiveness to the will of God or a man. The veil is a banner of political Islam used, to segregate women born by historical accident in the so-called ‘Islamic World’ from other women in the rest of the world….

“Jack Straw’s government has always been proud of its ‘multicultural society’, in which all kinds of backward and anti-human cultures are respected and given space by the state…. Celebrating ‘different cultures’ the existence of mosques and religious schools is a place for brainwashing the young people with Islamic values which can only produce political Islamists.”

Houzan Mahmoud at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, 7 October 2006

I note that comrade Mahmoud’s profile states that she is an activist in the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, but avoids mentioning that she is a member of a bizarre ultra-left sect called the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, of which the OWFI is just a front.