The “Islamic Fashion Festival” Goes to Milan… and London

Starting in 2006, the Malaysian-based Islamic Fashion Festival carries the slogan “Discover the Beauty of Modesty” and aims to “take an innovative spin on the conventional fashion exhibition to boldly present Islamic culture and attire on an international platform,” It offers such features as “Hijab Fashion” and “Abaya Fashion.” The IFF has staged events in Kuala Lumpur, Abu Dhabi, Astana, Dubai, Jakarta, Monte Carlo, New York, Singapore and Bandung. Next month, the show will be brought to London.

According to Malaysian National News Agency, IFF, under the patronage of Malaysia’s First Lady, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, has been invited to participate in the Milan Fashion Week.”

via The “Islamic Fashion Festival” Goes to Milan :: Daniel Pipes.

Australia: niqab’d woman wins appeal against police for “mistaken identity”

Image via Wikipedia

Because who can tell who is under a burqa? That’s of course, why she has a shocking record of driving offences and of not paying the fines:

 judge Clive Jeffreys said yesterday he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that it was Mrs Matthews who made the racism accusation because the person who complained to police was wearing a burqa at the time.

The absurdity of the law is that, to reach the level of proof of identity to make the case, Mrs Matthews would have been required to identify herself by lifting her burqa at the police station – what started the uproar in the first place.

More than a dozen Muslim supporters linked arms and began chanting “Allah Akbar” as they stormed out of Downing Centre Court with Mrs Matthews concealed behind them.

Tempers rose and they began jostling with police after several members of the group attacked cameramen.

It marked a stark difference from their behaviour minutes earlier, when they had quietly assembled outside the lifts for prayer shortly after the judge’s decision.

Mrs Matthew’s lawyer Stephen Hopper (what a moron!) defended their actions saying: “They are obviously happy with the result and are expressing it in a way that is culturally appropriate to them.”

A really good reason for banning the burqa NOW. Because anyone who wants to commit some crime would just have to go covered by a burqa to avoid punishment.

Her husband has said that “she is very unhappy and that she doesn’t want to go outside (her home)”. Perhaps, Australian roads are much more safer now.

He is no “saint”, either:

Islamic modesty

Because displaying your lingerie is much more modest than showing your face… 😆

Found here.

Or could it be she wanted some Vitamin D?

“A Jordanian study published this week asserted that 87% of women between the ages of 18 and 70 in Jordan suffer from a lack of Vitamin D as a result of insufficient sun exposure and not enough milk consumption. “

Insufficient sun exposure? Wow, must be the burqas, niqabs or something. Oh, wait, Muslim women (all of them) have huge gardens where they can have some sun exposure (in the comments)…

Yeah, right..

More Islamic modesty.

Saudi Arabia: Women’s “seditious” eyes should be covered

Wow… so they will be obliged to wear a burqa? And how do you define “seditious eyes”?

Women unveiling their eyes in public in Saudi Arabia will be forced to fully cover up their faces if their eyes are found to be seditious, according to the Gulf Kingdom’s most feared Islamic law-enforcement group.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice was reacting to last week’s fight between one its members and a Saudi husband, who was maddened by the man’s orders to his wife to cover up her face, the Saudi Arabic language daily Alwatan reported on Sunday.

Police are still investigating the incident, in which the husband was stabbed in the back during the fight in the southern province of Hael.

“The Commission members have orders to tell any women in public to cover up her face if they find that her eyes are seditious,” the paper said, quoting Sheikh Mutlaq Al Nabit, a Commission spokesman in Hael.

Women in Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative Muslim nations, must veil their faces in public but some of them uncover their eyes.

Nabit did not explain how the Commission members determine that a woman’s eyes are seditious.

via Women with “seditious” eyes must cover up – Emirates24|7.

My goodness. As you see they even don’t know what are seditious eyes, imagine the lack of security for normal citizens…

Australia: woman to appeal jailing over burqa incident

An Australian Muslim said Friday she would appeal the six-month jail sentence handed to her for falsely accusing a Sydney police officer of trying to pull off her burqa to verify that she held a driving licence.

… In video evidence presented to the court, Matthews called the officer a racist for asking her to show her face to see if it matched that in the photograph on her driving licence.

‘You look at me and see me wearing this and you couldn’t handle it,’ Matthews said. ‘All cops are racist.’

via Australian woman to appeal jailing over burqa incident – Monsters and Critics.

More commentary here. She has been jailed for 6 months over the incident.

Wow, gorgeous. So  now, asking to verify your identity is racist?

This is the type of case that convince me even more that banning burqas is necessary. If you want to wear it, go to Afghanistan. I’m told the living standards don’t match Australian/Western ones, but what the hell? You will be able to live in a non-racist society where you can wear the burqa and not being asked to verify your identity! With other minor details, like the Talibans next door…

 

Kosovo: Headscarf ban sparks debate over country’s identity

for the last few months, life for this 17-year-old has been anything but peaceful.

She was forced to leave school when she donned the hijab – or Islamic headscarf – in March, after the Kosovan government banned them in state schools.

The local authorities are deciding whether to allow her back when classes resume after the summer holiday.

“I felt very sad and discriminated against because I want to have rights like others – I want to go to school,” Florinda tells me, as we sit on the terrace of her family house.

“If they tell me to take it off, I won’t do that and I will leave the school because the hijab is more important to me than the school. It’s the most important thing in my life,” she adds. (Well, your choice… 🙄 ).

The government decided to forbid the wearing of headscarves in public schools late last year, in accordance with the constitution that declares Kosovo – which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008 – a secular country.

Vlora Çitaku

Kosovo’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Vlora Citaku, says other reasons lie behind her government’s position.

“The scarf in Kosovo is not an element of our identity. It’s a sign of submission of female to male, rather than a sign of choice“, she explains.

“I don’t think a 16 or 17-year-old, let alone a five-year-old, can take the conscious decision to wear a scarf.”

I ask her what the difference is between a 17 and an 18-year-old, and why she would allow headscarves in university but ban them in public schools.

“After 18 there is an overall perception that a person is capable of making their own decision, rather than having a decision imposed,” she says, contending that most people support the ban.

via BBC News – Headscarf ban sparks debate over Kosovo’s identity.
They add that there is a Catholic Cathedral which is being built in Pristina (Kosovo), while 90% of the people in the country are Muslims. And? What has to do building a church with wearing the hijab? Don’t Muslims build mosques also? And what has to do a building with women’s submission to men? 😯

Italy: Muslims and niqab

Title: Blatant mysogyny.

Kuwait: “I understand European governments that ban the use of niqab”, Sheikh wife says

”I understand European governments that ban the use of the niqab [the veil that covers the whole of the face] or that want to introduce rules forbidding its use. The integral veil is unacceptable and is not even a religious precept”. These are the comments of the Kuwaiti female Sheikh Hussah Sabah Salem al-Sabah, who is currently in Milan for the launch of the ”Al Fann, the art of Islamic civilisation” exhibition, which is being held at Palazzo Reale until January 30.

”If a woman wants to cover her head with a hijab, she is free to do so. But the niqab is unacceptable. There is not a passage of the Koran in which it is written that a woman must cover her face,” the Sheikh told ANSAmed. It is, she says, ”religious fanaticism that has nothing to do with Islam”.

In response to a question on the sad story of Sakineh, the Iranian woman accused of killing her husband and sentenced to death by stoning, Sheikh al Sabah said that ”before being able to resolve a problem as big as stoning, we must remedy the issue of the veil”.

The wife of the Kuwaiti Prime Minister maintains that it is possible to ban the niqab by law. Indeed, it is the right thing to do. ”It is a question of national security. We must know who is behind the veil”. There then follows an equally important issue: communication between human beings. With a symbolic gesture, taking a sheet of paper and placing it in front of her face, Sheikh Hussah asks ”how can we communicate if in front of me there is a wall that separates us?”.

via ISLAM: KUWAIT SHEIKH, INTEGRAL VEIL IS UNACCEPTABLE – Lombardia – ANSAMED.info.

Syria has also banned both niqab and burqa at Universities.

Is anyone going to call this woman racist too?

Turkey: Judges caution about “relaxation of burqa ban”

The Supreme Court warned Turkey that the country’s political progressive relaxation of restrictions on women wearing headscarves violates the constitution’s secular principles.
The statement comes after a series of meetings on the issue between the opposition parties and the ruling AK Party, which two years ago lost a battle with the judges over the veil.
In principle, women are forbidden to cover their heads at many universities and in all government offices, but few universities follow the prohibition, and the Ministry of Education has said it will support any student who disobeys the ban.
The main opposition party, a strong supporter of the ban, now says he wants a commitment.

Source.

Background:
“Headscarf ban is against freedom of believe”, Erdogan says.
Chief of Religious Affairs Directorate asks politicians to solve headscarf’s problem by themselves.
Erdogan’s party loses key vote on headscarf.

Turkey: Erdogan’s party loses key vote on headscarf ban

Good news. Politicians fail to find common ground on lifting Turkey’s head scarf ban | StarTribune.com:

“Turkey’s governing party failed to win key opposition support on Wednesday for plans to lift a ban on the wearing of Islamic head scarves at universities, a deeply divisive issue in a country with secular laws and a Muslim population.

The conflict over the head scarf reflects a struggle over Turkey’s direction between the Islamic-oriented government, which argues for more religious freedom, and critics who believe the country’s secular principles are in peril.

In Turkey, women are free to wear Islamic head scarves, but students, teachers and state-employed officials are not.”

Background:
“Headscarf ban is against freedom of believe”, Erdogan says.
Chief of Religious Affairs Directorate asks politicians to solve headscarf’s problem by themselves.

Syria: burqa and niqab ban in universities

Syria bans the burka and niqab in universities | Mail Online

Syria has banned face-covering Islamic veils from the country’s universities.
The surprise move comes as similar moves in Europe – including controversial calls in Britain for a ban on burkas – have sparked cries of discrimination against Muslims.
The crackdown was ordered by the secular government in Damascus amid fears of increasing Islamic extremism among young Muslim students.
Syria is not a Muslim country. An official at the ministry says the ban affects public and private universities and aims to protect the country’s secular identity.

Are they also going to call Syria racist?

Canada: Bill to restrict niqab scrutinized in Quebec

Bill to restrict niqab scrutinized:

“A National Assembly committee analyzing Bill 94, which would make it illegal for Islamic women to wear the niqab in government offices, schools and hospitals, resumes sitting Tuesday. The hearing will hear from experts on the topic.

Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier has said the bill is “balanced.” But the Parti Quebecois has called for a ban on all ostentatious religious signs, including the hijab Islamic head covering, in the public sector and finds Bill 94 too meek. Islamic groups say Bill 94 singles them out and is discriminatory.”

Anglican Church: Williams on burqa ban, secularism and Europe

Rowan Williams

Episcopal Life Online – WORLD REPORT:

“Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has deplored attempts by governments in Europe to prohibit Muslim women from publicly wearing the burqa, a garment that covers the entire body.

‘Governments should have better things to do than ban the burqa,’ Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, told an interfaith meeting organized by the National Council of Churches in India at its headquarters in Nagpur, during a visit to India.

…”I believe that the state ought not to be addressing issues like these. Instead, it should leave such concerns to the religious communities,” stated Williams at the Oct. 14 meeting in Nagpur. He described the French ban as “a sign of being overanxious.”

More than 100 church leaders, led by the NCCI’s president, Methodist Bishop Taranath Sagar, and Bishop Purely Lyngdoh, moderator of the Church of North India, attended the meeting alongside Muslims and Sikhs, and members of the Hindu community.

“We are glad that the archbishop spoke out clearly on the burqa controversy. He is very objective and respects other faiths,” A. Majid Parekh, a Muslim leader in Nagpur, told ENInews after listening to the Anglican leader.

Williams told ENInews that the controversy generated by bans on the burqa, the Sikh turban and the Christian cross in some European countries, “shows the extension of secularism too far. This ought to be resisted. The communities should have the right to decide on such issues.” Williams said he had protested when a British Airways employee was told she should not wear her necklace cross visibly while at work.

He told the meeting that attacks against migrants in Europe were not the result of Christian prejudice against non-Christians but a “crude nationalist prejudice against migrants and outsiders.”

On the link between religions and terrorism, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion said that terrorism is a product of “bad” religion. “The positive affirmation of faith in God and respect for one another is the solution for it,” he stated.”

Turkey: Chief of Religious Affairs Directorate asks politicians to solve headscarf’s problem by themselves

‘Leave us out of headscarf issue,’ says Turkey’s religious director – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review:

Chief of the Religious Affairs Directorate Ali Bardakoğlu has responded to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s call for cooperation in solving the headscarf issue by asking politicians to solve the problem themselves.

“Don’t leave the headscarf issue to us, let the politicians solve it through dialogue,” Bardakoğlu told daily Habertürk on Friday.

Erdoğan had previously called for a solution to the issue through the involvement of the Religious Affairs Directorate, a department within the Prime Ministry.

Bardakoğlu responded by saying the directorate does “not make statements on order.”

Wearing a headscarf is a matter of personal choice, said the religious chief. “Wearing a headscarf does not make you Muslim, just as not wearing a headscarf does not mean that you are not Muslim.”

Spain: "Burqa ban hasn’t caused radicalization", Lérida’s Major says

The mayor of Lleida, Àngel Ros, said yesterday in an interview to El món a RAC1 that the Muslim community in Lleida “isn’t in any process of radicalization” after the prohibition, to women wearing the full Islamic veil, of entering municipal facilities. The ban, which also extends to other objects that cover their faces like masks and helmets, has been accepted even by some of the Muslim community. According to Ros, “this has been a clear sign that not everything can be allowed in the integration process.” 
 
… the socialist leader believes that “immigration should be controlled because the welfare state can not assume all“, while generating “activity and wealth in countries from where immigration comes from.” 
“Immigrants must accept the roles of the host society” and understand that “go with the face covered in a civic center is not a sign of coexistence,” he said.

Source.


Back in July, he told the Islamic community that the Major’s office wasn’t obliged to give religious communities temples, after the closure of the Mosque from Nord street. Local police have counted 1,200 people going to the mosque, while its capacity was of only 240. “It’s “obvious” that if they want to pray at a mosque, the community must meet the conditions and legal regulations“, he added. 

The Salafist imam who run the mosque, Abdelwahab Houzi, said that he felt he was being persecuted. 


Translation: T&P.

Canada: Muslim women can be veiled in courtrooms

A Canadian court issued a ruling today on whether Muslim women can be forced to remove their niqab while testifying and, lo and behold, both sides of the debate are happy. That’s because the Ontario Court of Appeal determined that a witness is allowed to refuse to bare her face unless — unless! — the fairness of the trial depends on it. The judges’ ruling reads in part:

There is no getting around the reality that in some cases, particularly those involving trial by jury where a witness’s credibility is central to the outcome, a judge will have a difficult decision to make. If, in the specific circumstances, the accused’s fair trial right can be honoured only by requiring the witness to remove the niqab, the niqab must be removed if the witness is to testify.

A 32-year-old Muslim woman, who accused her cousin and uncle of sexual abuse when she was a child, sparked the ruling when she refused to remove her veil on the stand. Her lawyer argued, “Really, it’s all about making people feel welcome in our judicial system at a time when they’re undergoing significant stress — for example, by being a complainant in a sexual assault case.” Indeed, a blanket courtroom ban on veiling could cause Muslim women to avoid the justice system altogether.

Source.

Al-Qaeda kidnappers tell France to drop veil ban

Al-Qaeda kidnappers tell France to drop veil ban – The Irish Times – Tue, Oct 12, 2010:

“ISLAMIST MILITANTS who have been holding five French citizens since kidnapping them in Niger last month have demanded that France withdraw its ban on Muslim face veils and pay a €7 million ransom to secure their release, it was claimed yesterday.

Al-Arabiya television reported that initial contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim) via intermediaries in the Sahel region were “not encouraging” due to the nature of the demands.

“The abductors have unrealistic demands which Mali and France could not accept . . . including withdrawing a ban on the face veil in France and the release of some of the group’s elements detained in France, Mauritania and other countries,” the channel quoted unnamed sources.”

Background:
7 foreigners kidnapped near uranium mining site.

AQ behind Niger attack.

AQ warns GOVT against rescuing French kidnapped nationals
France: We are ready to negotiate with AQIM, Interior Minister says.
AQIM releases hostages’ tape.
AQIM: French hostage needs immediate medical care.
Constitutional Council approves burqa ban.

Kosovo: 1,000 Muslims protest headscarf ban

Some 1,000 people took to the streets of the Kosovo capital yesterday to protest against a government ban on wearing Muslim headscarves in public schools.
“Our demand is that this ban to be suspended as soon as possible,” said Bujar Xhikoti, a representative of the organisers of the protest.
The organisers, relatively unknown non-governmental “Join Us” movement, warned the protests would be intensified if the ban was not suspended in a month.
Carrying signs saying Prime Minister “Hashim Thaci do not discriminate against us because we are Muslims” and chanting “Allahu Akbar” , the protesters demanded that the government allow the wearing of religious symbols in schools.
More than 90% of Kosovo’s population are Muslims, but Western values and culture dominate in the society.

Source.

France: Constitutional Council approves burqa ban

France’s top legal authority has approved a law banning full-face veils in public, the last hurdle for the ban, which aims to protect women’s rights but has been criticised as stigmatising Muslims.

The Constitutional Council, which had previously warned that banning the veil may be unconstitutional, said it approved the version of the bill, which has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, after a final review.

It judged however that the ban, due to enter force early next year, would be unenforceable in public places of worship, where it may violate religious freedoms.

“The ban on covering the face in public places cannot constrain the practice of religious freedom in places of worship that are open to the public,” the council said in its judgement.

Source.

Austria: both major parties include conservative headscarf-wearing women on their lists

Election Campaign with a Veil : Euro-Islam: News and Analysis on Islam in Europe and North America:

Both the Social Democratic Part of Austria (SPÖ) as well as the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), the two largest political parties of the country, have included conservative headscarf-wearing women on their electoral lists for the upcoming Viennese elections.
In both cases the women are so far down on the list that they are sure not become part of the new Viennese council; however, in the case of the SPÖ candidate Gülsüm Namaldi (right), her conservative religious views and support for Turkish-language education has attracted criticism. Meanwhile the leader of the Viennese ÖVP, Christine Marek, called for the “acceptance of the veil as a normal situation” in an interview with the migrant magazine “Biber,” in which she poses with ÖVP’s headscarf-wearing candidate, Sara Rahman (below).

Marek says: (Headscarf) is not an issue, whether they wear a headscarf or not. It has to be accepted as normal and we have done it.
An excerpt:

Mrs. Marek, you are a burqa ban, Sara, as you see it?

Marek: burqa and headscarf – these are really two different pairs of shoes.

Rahman: They are not only two different pairs of shoes, that’s such a big difference as that between winter boots and flip-flops. The burqa is not based on religion. It has traditionally played only a role in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, I am against a burqa ban. The woman must decide for themselves.

Marek: I do a bit different. In Austria we’re used to be able to look in the face. Where a full concealment takes place, a limit is exceeded. I once had a woman who wore a Nikhab… That’s a strange feeling to see only the eyes. So such women have little chance to integrate, of course. Therefore, I am looking for a burqa ban. This is not the headscarf. If a woman wears a headscarf voluntarily, then we have to respect that.