The lack of muscle in Western liberal values is permitting a fundamentalist strain of Islam to gain a foothold in spheres that should be protected, such as schooling and childhood.
.... The question of where rights stop and dressing-up begins was dealt with succinctly by the Law Lords in 2006, in their ruling on the case of Shabina Begum, a who had relentlessly pursued her school through the courts for the right to ignore its uniform policy and instead wear an all-concealing garment called the jilbab.
The school – which had a Muslim headmistress, Yasmin Bevan – had gone to great pains to devise a sensibly modest option for Muslim girls, but drew the line at the jilbab.
The Law Lords found for the school, ruling that “a person’s right to hold a particular religious belief is absolute, but a person’s right to manifest a particular religious belief is qualified”. [telegraph.co.uk, 21 September] Read more
