The burka, not bare flesh, demeans girls

Driving through Dublin city centre one day last week I saw a woman pushing a little baby girl in a pram. At least, I think she was a woman. Her hands looked young and slim and there was a glimpse of a heel under the ankle-length black burka that obliterated any other hint of humanity, let alone femininity. She was nothing more than a moving black silhouette, peering through a tiny lace grid, though no eyes were actually visible. [The Sunday Times] Read more

Polygamists 'breeding for cash'

The burqa, or face-covering veil, is getting all the attention in the debate over Muslim immigrants in France. But another controversial tradition among some immigrants is less noticed and far more widespread: Polygamy.

The issue resurfaced last week after a woman received a traffic citation in the western city of Nantes for driving with a veil over her face. Officials then accused her husband of having at least three other wives, and said he may be profiting from them financially while the state pays the bill. [The New Zealand Herald] Read more [via Jihad Watch]

Fear of Teddy Bears...

.... Clearly people are a little afraid to poke fun at islam but this is a minor matter. Why should people take risks when there is a better way.

It wasn't so many years ago that society as a whole was very tolerant of religion. Even disbelievers chose not to rock the boat, feeling perhaps that belief is at least benign, but probably good for society even if it's all nonsense.

But things changed as the West came up against islam. Here was a religion that was totally unacceptable in many (but not all) of its social mores. And the tolerance bubble seems to have burst. Now society is no longer giving religion an easy ride. [Religious Watch] Read more

Erica Connor: driven out of my own school

In 2001, Erica Connor was invited to Downing Street to celebrate her achievements as a head teacher who had transformed the fortunes of her primary school. Today, the 58-year-old works as a hospital care assistant, her illustrious teaching career destroyed by a cabal of Muslim governors whose accusations of racism made it impossible for her to run her school. [telegraph.co.uk] Read more

Europe: Interest in Burka-ban following Belgian vote

Last Thursday the lower house of the Belgian parliament passed a law banning the burka. It does not seem likely that this law will pass the Senate any time soon, but that did not prevent politicians elsewhere in Europe from calling for a continent-wide ban. [Islam in Europe] Read more

What's threatening about European attacks on Muslim veils BELGIUM'S PARLIAMENT is so polarized along linguistic lines that it has been unable to agree on a government for much of the past three years. At the moment it is ruled by a caretaker coalition. But the deputies managed to achieve near-unanimity this week on one pressing issue: discriminating against Muslims. A law passed by the lower house would ban the wearing of full Islamic face veils in any public place -- and exacerbate what is becoming an ugly European trend. [The Washington Post] Read more

MEP Koch-Mehrin calls for Europe-wide burka ban After Belgium's parliament voted to ban Islamic full-face veils, the German vice-president of the European Parliament has called for a ban of the burka throughout Europe. Silvana Koch-Mehrin called the full-body veil an attack on the rights of women in a guest editorial in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

"I would like to see all forms of the burka banned in Germany and in all of Europe," wrote the politician, a member of Germany's pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). [The Local Europe] Read more [via Islamophobia Watch]

Belgium bans burkas: Women who refuse to show faces to be jailed for a week under draft law Belgium became the first European country to impose a full ban on wearing a burka last night. Its parliament approved a draft law which states women can be jailed for hiding their faces in public. The bill - which must be rubber-stamped by the Belgian senate - is set to become law by July. [MailOnline] Read more

Rejecting the burka In Britain, for instance, this total lack of willingness to integrate on the part of some Muslims has become an obstacle to the formal learning of English, has heightened inter-communal tensions, and has reinforced the ghettoization of Asian Muslims into separate enclaves with high unemployment and increased social alienation.

.... Those who support such legislation realize that an easygoing multiculturalism works only when there are basic shared values and a willingness to integrate. But European multiculturalism has deteriorated into rudderless moral relativism and a pusillanimous reluctance to criticize radical Islamic customs for fear of being branded an Islamophobe. [The Jerusalem Post] Read more

Burqa ban is a revival of an older European battle against religion

.... The battle between priests and secular primary school teachers — waged in villages across the country throughout the 19th century — was decisive in shaping the nation's political psyche. It turned France into a country where religion was accepted, but distrusted by the republican institutions.

Politicians, commentators, but also swaths of French public opinion, see radical Islam as a challenge to the secular state and to the values that it is supposed to promulgate — liberty, equality, fraternity. [Times Online] Read more

Jihadist walks free after ‘Islam will dominate…’ and ‘Kill Gordon Brown’ graffiti on war memorial ruled not hate speech

.... What really beggars belief is that the Counter Terrorism Division of the Crown Prosecution Service in London decided that the incident was not racially or religiously motivated saying, “While it was appreciated that what was sprayed on the memorial may have been perceived by some to be part of a racial or religious incident, no racial or religious group can be shown to have been targeted.” [manicstreetpreacher] Read more

War memorial: the final insult A BRITISH Muslim has shown ‘no remorse’ after desecrating Burton’s War Memorial with extremist Islamic slogans, a court has heard. .... senior lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service have decided that graffiti proclaiming future world domination for Islam, glorifying Osama Bin Laden and calling for the assassination of the British Prime Minister “was not religiously or racially motivated”. [Burton Mail] Read more [via The Iconoclast]

Muslims and Westerners: The Psychological Differences

.... Islam is the perfect religion to give justification for those who feel under attack and to maintain the eternal “victim" fantasy. Islam is also “higher” than Christianity because it comes last in co-opting the revelations of Sinai and the New Testament.

What a perfect receptacle for projecting hatred. Islam incites, encourages and permits hatred of the Jew and Jihad. It’s perfect for a fragile personality that has the need to hate and the need to have an enemy. There are billions of people out there who share those sentiments and that profile.

As an underdog religion, Islam provides great mass appeal, which even Eric Hoffer, the author of the True Believer, noted in 1951. It should come as no surprise that its numbers are growing. If one has a grievance, Islam will take care of it. [The Iconoclast] Read more

Shall the religious inherit the earth?

.... Caldwell, too, thinks that while the West’s current encounter with Islam may be ‘painful and violent’, it has also been, ‘an infusion of oxygen into the drab, nitpicking, materialist intellectual life of the West’, for which we need to express our ‘gratitude’. The very values against which radical Islamists rail – the values of secular humanism – are also the very values that so disgust many of Islam’s greatest critics. Little wonder the critics both create fantasies about radical Islam's onward march - and feel unable to challenge it.

Whether or not the religious will triumph over the next century, no one can say. What is certain is that if they do, it will not be because secularists have been out-bred, but because they have been out-thought. The real challenge that secularists face is not in bed but in the public square. And it's a challenge that comes as much from Eurabists as from Islamists. [Kenan Malik] Read more [via Butterflies and Wheels]

Cut Off from Humanity...

A sharia court in Mogadishu run by Al-Shabaab Islamist group sentenced a man to amputation of the right hand. The man, Shine Abubakar Hassan, was reportedly found guilty by the court on Monday of stealing mattresses and other domestic items. The court also ordered Hassan to compensate for the value of the stolen items. [Religious Watch] Read more

Muslim-phobia is so entrenched that it's gone beyond a joke

.... The executives at Comedy Central, which broadcasts South Park, may have wondered whether to take such blogospheric fantasies seriously. Normally, a warning coming from 12 bloggers claiming to represent 1.3 billion people worldwide would be treated as ridiculous. Unless, of course, we're talking about Muslims.

My guess is that most Americans, Muslim or otherwise, have never heard of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker murdered by a lone psychotic Dutch-Moroccan man. And even fewer will have heard of Revolution Muslim. But that didn't stop Comedy Central taking precautions and censoring the depiction of Muhammad in the broadcast episode.

[Comment] .... I'm amazed that the Herald would publish something like this. This piece is anything but funny. The 'imbecilic threats' that your author refers to ought to be taken seriously because others have died after ignoring similarly imbecilic threats. [The Sydney Morning Herald] Read more [via EuropeNews]

Muslims in India: Taking Back Islam from the Wahhabis

.... Muslims living in democratic states like India, Britain, and the U.S. have special opportunities to expose the expansion of petrol-financed fundamentalism and to assist those who have pledged to resist it among Muslim communities around the world.

The battle for Islamic pluralism is not limited to the West, or to controversy over Western principles; it strikes to the heart of Muslim spiritual life, whether in America, Britain, India, or Pakistan. [Hudson New York] Read more

What I learned from Boobquake

When I heard an Iranian cleric claim that immodest dress caused earthquakes, I had to test it out, as scientifically as possible. .... To be honest, global discussion and awareness were not my original goal – that wasn't even feasible in my mind.

Though I'm glad it happened, I also want to stress the original message behind Boobquake. As a scientist and a sceptic, I firmly believe that we should test claims people make, especially when they're ridiculous. And as an atheist, I don't think supernatural beliefs are exempt from this questioning. [Guardian Cif] Read more

Response to City University Islamic Society

I was thinking of not bothering to reply to the City University Islamic Society’s riposte to me and Rosie Waterhouse (see below) because I thought I’d already made all the substantive points I wanted to make about the ISoc – and its diatribe was beyond parody.

Private Eye’s Dave Spart couldn’t have managed a more contorted statement of evidence-free denunciation than this (mangled spelling, grammar and punctuation retained): [GAUCHE] Read more [via Harry’s Place]

CRS police refuse halal canteen food

.... A group of CRS officers in Rouen have written a tract voicing their anger after learning that they had frequently been served halal turkey and sausages at meal times for two years without knowing. The letter, written by local representatives of the SGP-Force Ouvrière union, said the "foreign ritual" did not "correspond with our values". [The Connexion] Read more [via The Iconoclast]

Bail denied to jailed Christian mother accused of blasphemy

A court judge in Gujranwala has refused to grant bail to a Christian mother-of-three who stands accused of blasphemy. Rubina Bibi was charged after a dispute with her neighbour, named only as Samina. Rubina had bought a food item from Samina but when she found that it was damaged, had sought a refund. Samina refused to refund her because she was a Christian and had touched the item already.

The incident turned into a row and Samina and her relative, a local imam, later brought the charge against Rubina that she had made derogatory comments against the Islamic Prophet Mohammad. [Pakistan Christian Post] Read more [via National Secular Society]

Ellesmere Port mother’s anger after daughter told trip to mosque is ‘compulsory’

A MOTHER is keeping her daughter off school after refusing to give her permission to take part in a trip to a Liverpool mosque.

Michelle Davis, of Bodiam Court, Ellesmere Port, claims she was left with no choice but to keep 14-year-old daughter Amy Owen at home after Ellesmere Port Catholic High School’s headteacher Peter Lee tried to encourage the pupil into participating.

Miss Davies said: “I objected to Amy being made to dress like a Muslim girl, the original letter from the school gave a dress code for the visit, including long skirts, leggings or tights and covering up her head. [Ellesmere Port Pioneer] Read more

Netherlands: 20% of teachers avoid teaching about the Holocaust

A fifth of history teachers in the four major Dutch cities have had to deal with not being able to or rarely bringing up the Holocaust because Muslim students in particular have difficulties with it.

This according to a survey among history teachers in secondary education by the Elsevier weekly and research agency ResearchNed. Teachers in VMBO schools in particular encounter resistance, elsevier.nl reported. The teachers said that in the VMBO schools four major cities, in particular, immigrant students were less interested than ethnic Dutch. [Islam in Europe] Read more

Half of Europeans opposed to Islamic veil in schools

Just over half of Europeans surveyed opposed allowing Islamic headscarves in schools but backed the presence of crucifixes in classrooms, according to a Spanish study obtained by AFP Wednesday.A total 52.6 per cent of those polled in 12 European Union member states along were "opposed" or "totally opposed" to the use of the garment in schools, according to the study carried out by the research department of BBVA, Spain's second-largest bank.

Opposition to the veil was highest in Bulgaria with 84.3 per cent against and France with 68.7 per cent opposed and it was lowest in Poland with only 25.6 per cent against followed by Denmark with 28.1 per cent opposed. [Agence France-Presse] Read more [via Islam in Europe]

Egyptian law gives fanatics free rein

One Thousand and One Nights is a classic collection of Arab folk tales. First compiled in written form in 10th-century Iraq, it derived some of its stories from an earlier Persian collection, which in turn made use of even older tales from India. Though some of the content is a bit earthy, it's part of the world's literary heritage. Or so you might think.

But now a group, Lawyers Without Restrictions, is trying to ban it by launching an obscenity case against officials in the general culture authority, which publishes the work in Egypt. [Guardian Cif] Read more

Muslim row Labour candidate, John Cowan, suspended

A Labour candidate has been suspended after allegedly saying on an internet forum that he would not want any children of his to marry a Muslim.

John Cowan, who is said to have admitted paying cash to a cleaner claiming benefits, called the row a "storm in a tea cup". His suspension comes too late for him to be replaced on the ballot paper for South East Cambridgeshire. A party spokesman said he hoped voters may "hold their noses" but vote Labour. [BBC] Read more

Battle against the Burka is not based on bigotry

FRANCE'S move to extend its ban on the Islamic headscarf and outlaw the full-face veil appears to be catching on. Belgian MPs will vote on whether to prohibit it and similar laws have been drafted in Italy. Europe's rising Muslim population, which exceeds 20 per cent in some cities, has ensured a groundswell of support for these moves.

The debate in Europe has stirred interest in Australia too. Some commentators have seized on calls to ban the burka, which they judge to be "un-Australian". Others, including this writer, saw the French move as a xenophobic overreaction, more likely to inflame social tensions than ease them.

However, this glib interpretation does not withstand an hour's conversation with a key architect of the hijab ban, French scholar Gilles Kepel, who visited Australia recently. [The Australian] Read more [via Political Correctness Watch]

Headscarves banned in public schools

The young Kosovo Republic, with an overwhelming Muslim majority but a tradition of moderate Islam and a secular constitution, has joined Tunisia and France in prohibiting girls attending public schools from wearing the headscarf (hijab).

As in Turkey, where the ban on headscarves, instituted in the 1920s, has become a matter for judicial controversy, decisions against the headscarf by local and school authorities have produced a legal case and complaints of discrimination. [Islam in Europe] Read more

Jack Straw apologises for his anti-niqab comments at ENGAGE hustings in Blackburn

The former Justice Minister, Jack Straw, made a public apology last night over comments he made in October 2006 that have since sparked controversy on the wearing of niqab in the UK and across Europe. Participating in an election hustings event organized by the local ENGAGE unit in Blackburn Mr Straw said:

“To be blunt, if I had realised the scale of publicity that they (his comments) received in October 2006, I wouldn’t have made them and I am sorry that it has caused problems and I offer that apology. [ENGAGE] Read more

Seattle cartoonist launches "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day"

After Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a radical Muslim group, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris wanted to counter the fear. She has declared May 20th "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

Norris told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross that cartoonists are meant to challenge the lines of political correctness. "That's a cartoonist's job, to be non-PC." [MyNorthwest.com] Read more

Creators of “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” Appalled by hate The recent firestorm over South Park not drawing Muhammad caused some cartoonists to create a campaign called “Everybody Draw Muhammad day.”

The creators of the campaign were shocked when they were deluged with offensive and hateful portrayals of Muhammad (what did they expect?) and dropped their gag. [Loonwatch] Read more