MECO (Muslim Educational Centre at Oxford) launches ABNI (anti-Burqa and Niqab Initiative), a “Muslim-led protest” that argues Islam “does not necessitate women to tuck away their faces in public.” MECO is the mouthpiece of ‘Imam’ Taj Hargey (PhD African history), self-proclaimed victim of Muslim McCarthyites, and a man of impeccable character. Dearest Taj is also linked to British Muslims for Secular Democracy, an organization founded by my favourite Muslim columnist, Yasmin Alibi-Brain.
Latest Updates: burka RSS
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plimfix
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johnpi
There must be over 50 stories on the wires this morning about the impending French face veil ban.
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johnpi
France’s anti-burka law drafted. $1,000 fine for each time a woman is caught wearing the garment. If it can be somehow determined that a man forced a woman to wear a burka, he would face an even heavier fine.
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johnpi
Egypt university to appeal niqab ruling.
A leading Cairo university will appeal a court decision allowing female students to don the full face veil on campus dormitories, a university official said on Monday.
“Cairo’s Ain Shams University will immediately appeal the decision issued by the Supreme Administrative Court on Sunday,” the official said.
The court had said that donning the niqab– a veil covering the entire face– “is one example of freedom that no administrative body or any other body can ban.”
The court is also expected to rule on December 27 on the case of female university students who have been told they will not be allowed to sit exams if they insist on wearing the full face veil.
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johnpi
Besson said he believed a formal ban on veils that cover the face and body seemed to him “unavoidable,” with a ban in public services as a minimum step.
Whether such veils are banned or not, he said he intends to personally move forward to ensure that women wearing such veils and seeking French nationality or residence cards are denied.
“I want the wearing of the full veil to be systematically considered as proof of insufficient integration into French society, creating an obstacle to gaining (French) nationality,” he said.
He said he would advise prefects, the highest state representative in the various French regions, that the wearing of such veils is a motive for not delivering 10-year residence cards.
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johnpi
French ruling party to seek ban on Burqa in January, newspaper reports.
While a law prohibiting the garment completely might be difficult, the group might seek a ban on the burqua in the state’s civil service, in public buildings and on streets, the newspaper said.
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johnpi
More reports about vitamin D deficiency.
Back in December, a report in the Times said that the ‘burqa is bad for your health.’
MUSLIM women who wear the burqa in Ireland are at increased risk of pelvic fractures during childbirth because of vitamin D deficiency due to a lack of sunlight, a consultant warns.
There have actually been a whole slew of these reports that have prompted ire in response from some Muslims, such as this Muslimah Media Watch blog post from February:
OH NOES! Hijab will make you sick!
The results of a new study on Arab women in Dearborn, Mich., have been released. The study revealed that women who wear “traditional clothing” (code word for hijab) are prone to lower levels of vitamin D because of less exposure to sunlight. Two articles on the study read like, “Oh noes! Those poor hijabis who get no sunlight will get so sick!” This recent study is just the latest in a line of studies on hijabis in various parts of the world which all have the same result: hijabis don’t get enough sunlight and hence don’t get enough vitamin D. We’re told of all the risks of not getting enough vitamin D: increased risk of cancer, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and infections.
A new study released today shows that those with low levels of Vitamin D are 78 percent more likely to suffer strokes too.
It’s a miracle covered Muslim women don’t just fall to pieces walking down the street…
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johnpi
French Muslim leader says full-body veil is a door to radical Islam but any ban carries risks.
The head of France’s Muslim council said Wednesday that the full-body veil worn by a minority of Muslims in France is an “entry way” to radical Islam, but that a national debate over whether to ban the garment in public is stigmatizing the entire Muslim community.
Mohammed Moussaoui told a panel of lawmakers that any decision to outlaw the veils that cover the body and face risks feeding a sense of discrimination.
The debate “has taken on unexpected proportions” and “Muslims are increasingly finding themselves confronted with stereotypes whose consequence is the stigmatization of an entire religion,” Moussaoui said, referring to what many Muslims say is a tendency to group them into a single unit be they moderate or radical.
….The Muslim grouping said it preferred to try to dissuade women from wearing the veil through dialogue, saying any law could prove counterproductive, raising sympathy for those who wear the garment and feeding radical agendas.
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johnpi
Egypt Islamists sue top Sheikh over burka ban.
A group of MPs and an Islamist lawyer waged an unprecedented legal battle against one of Egypt’s top Imams on Saturday after he issued a ban on women wearing the burka, or face veil, at any schools affiliated to al-Azhar, the world’s top Sunni Islam institution.
A Muslim brotherhood lawyer, representatives of Egypt’s lower house of parliament and the Sawaseya Center for Human Rights joined forces to file a lawsuit against Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar over what they called his “unconstitutional” ban that violates personal freedom and contradicts the principle of equality for all citizens.
The group also sought action against the country’s minister of higher education and the president of Cairo University for their role in the recent decision to ban female students from wearing the burka in al-Azhar affiliated schools and in Cairo University dorms.
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johnpi
Italy cites Tantawi in considering burqa ban too.
Italy today became the latest European government to announce it was considering introducing a law which would make wearing a burqa illegal.
….MP Barbara Saltamartini, of the People of Freedom, said:’Banning the burqa can not be considered anti-Muslim because wearing it is not obligatory in Islam.
‘The Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, has just stated unequivocally that Muslim women have the right to their own identity and that the burqa is not part of Muslim tradition.
‘This position is of extreme importance not only because it dismantles false myths perpetrated by a patriarchal fundamentalism, but also because it shows how the dignity of a women is compatible with the symbols and values of Islam.
‘It would be absurd now if countries like Egypt ban this instrument of submission and we continue to avoid dealing with the question.’
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johnpi
Canadian Muslim group calls for burka ban.
A Canadian Muslim organization is urging the Canadian government to ban traditional Muslim garments designed to cover a woman’s face, saying they are medieval and misogynist symbols of extremism with no basis in Islam.
The Muslim Canadian Congress has called on the federal government to prohibit the burka and the niqab because it says that practice of covering one’s face has no place in a society that supports gender equality.
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johnpi
Muslim woman lifts veil to testify in Spanish court.
A Muslim woman testified in court in Madrid Monday with her veil raised and her head turned away from the public, in a deal reached with the judge last week after she had refused to show her face.
Arriving in court covered from head to foot in a black burka, Fatima Hssisni said she was surprised by the controversy surrounding the case.
“The enemy of human beings is ignorance,” she told journalists, adding that in other European countries wearing a burka is seen as normal.
….On Monday she testified minus the part of her burka which normally covers the face “between the chin and the eyebrows” and with her back turned to the public, an AFP journalist present in the courtroom said.
Spain’s conservative opposition leader Mariano Rajoy last week criticised the woman’s attitude.
“The freedom to observe customs in private seems fine to me, but in public you have to respect the law,” he said.
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johnpi
Muslim woman rebuked on burka by judge in Spain.
A Spanish judge yesterday expelled a Muslim woman wearing a burka from his court for refusing to show her face when testifying in the trial of a group of Islamic extremists.
“Seeing your face, I can see if you are lying or not, if you are surprised by a question or not,” Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez told the woman, the sister of an Islamic radical killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq in 2005.
The woman said that her religion forbade her from appearing in public without her burka, the all-covering article of clothing worn by some Islamic women, according to a journalist present.
When she refused to reveal her face, the judge expelled her from the courtroom.
But after speaking to the judge later in his chambers, a compromise was reached.
She said she had agreed to testify on Monday minus the part of her burka which normally covers the face “between the chin and the eyebrows” and with her back turned to the public in the courtroom.
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plimfix
That wine-slurping font of Islamic knowledge and truth, pal of Taj Hargey, and all round Muslim uber-liberal, Yasmin Alibi-Brain, has — surprise surprise — come out as anti-Burka, with her journalistic hyperbole plumbing new depths, including this gem: “Neo-conservative Islamic codes spread like swine flu, an infection few seem able to resist.” Few except our Yas, it seems. An interesting response here.
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plimfix
The hijab debate: ‘I don’t want to be judged on my looks’, c/o Independent on Sunday. Ten British women explain why to varying degrees they choose to cover up.
