New Hijab Controversies Looming in Europe

by Soeren Kern
February 1, 2013 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3561/europe-hijab

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A member of the Kuwaiti delegation of the UN Human Rights Council, Malik Al-Wazzan, said France should revoke the ban [on full-face Islamic veils] to "protect the human rights in discrimination and inequalities toward foreigners and those with different beliefs." This comes as the Kuwaiti Parliament considers a draft law banning the construction of churches.

The Belgian branch of the popular Dutch department store chain HEMA has lost a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a Muslim shop assistant whose contract was not extended after she refused to stop wearing a hijab, the traditional Islamic headscarf.
The woman had worked for the store in Belgian city of Genk for two months while wearing a headscarf, but after the store manager received complaints from customers, was then asked to remove it.
The woman, a Belgian convert to Islam, had been employed as temporary sales staff; HEMA declined to renew her contract because, its representatives said, of her refusal to remove her hijab.
In its defense, representatives of the Belgian shop said that to maintain the "neutral and discreet image of HEMA, the shop did not want employees wearing any kind of religious symbols." The store then offered the woman a job in its warehouse, where she would not have direct contact with clients. She said the alternative job offer was unsatisfactory and then consulted a lawyer.
On January 2, a labor court in the nearby Belgian city of Tongeren ruled that HEMA did not have a clearly stated policy on headscarves and thus had no valid reason to dismiss the woman.
The court ordered HEMA to pay the 21-year-old woman €9,000 ($12,000), the equivalent of six month's salary, as compensation.
According to the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, an NGO that helped bring the woman's case to trial, the main purpose of the legal action was to clarify how far a company can go in seeking to present a "neutral image" to its customers. The group believes neutrality cannot be invoked as a genuine and determining occupational requirement, and it says it is not self-evident that neutrality can amount to a legitimate goal, when it is chiefly invoked to please a private company's clients.
But the court's formulation indicates that if the HEMA store had clearly stated in its labor regulations that the wearing of religious signs was prohibited to comply with a neutrality policy, it would not have been sentenced. The company has since drawn up formal clothing requirements for all of its stores in Belgium.
In France, the first European country to ban the full-face Islamic veil in public places, anyone wearing the Muslim niqab or burqa in public faces a fine of €150 ($220) and/or lessons in French citizenship.
The government of Kuwait is now calling on France to reverse the ban. During a January 20 speech at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council, a member of the Kuwaiti delegation, Malik Al-Wazzan, said the French government should revoke the ban to "protect the human rights in discrimination and inequalities toward foreigners and those with different beliefs."
This comes as the Kuwaiti Parliament considers a draft law banning the construction of churches in the country, due to the "excessive number of churches" compared to Kuwait's Christian minority. The number of Christians with Kuwaiti nationality has plummeted from 200 in 2007 to fewer than 50 in 2012.
In Britain, St. Cyprian's Greek Orthodox Primary School in south London is being sued by Muslim parents after the school banned pupils from wearing the hijab in class. The couple insists it would be a sin for their nine-year-old daughter's head to be uncovered while in the presence of male teachers.
In an interview with the London-based newspaper, The Telegraph, the school's principal, Kate Magliocco, said the decision not to allow the girl to wear a headscarf was taken by the school's governing body.
"The school has a very particular uniform policy," Magliocco said, "which is shared with parents; and, as head, I must follow the plan. The pupil in question came to us from a private school. Her parents actively chose us and, before she arrived, we held a meeting which included details of the uniform plan."
The uniform policy on the school's website requires girls to wear a dark blue coat, an optional blazer, a skirt, white blouse and a navy blue pullover, but it fails to mention a ban on headscarves.
In Malta, an island country with a population of 400,000, Muslims are calling on the government to issue a directive to state clearly that female employees in both the public and private sectors are allowed to wear the hijab.
Imam Mohammed Elsadi, the leader of the 6,000-strong Maltese Muslim community, told the Times of Malta newspaper that such a clarification would encourage better representation for Muslim women in the labor market.
The request follows a recent case in which two Muslim women working in non-medical jobs in Malta's health sector were forced to remove their hijabs. The imam also referred to Muslim women teaching in government schools who did not wear the garment at work. "I don't know if this is because they are forbidden to wear it," he said, " or whether they remove it out of fear, or whether they choose not to wear it."
In Norway, home to an estimated 150,000 Muslims, the government appointed Faith and Ethics Commission released a report on January 7th recommending that the government begin allowing the use of the hijab headscarf in the Norwegian police force as well as among judges.
The main function of the Commission, established by the government in 2010, is to seek ways to safeguard the religious freedoms enshrined in the Norwegian constitution. The head of the Commission, Sturla Stalsett, said the entire 15-member panel believed the government should allow the hijab and other religious headgear for police officers and judges.
Upon receiving the report, however, Culture Minister Hadia Tajik (she is a Labor Party politician of Pakistani descent and the first Muslim to serve in a Norwegian cabinet) reiterated the long-standing policy that Norway will not allow female Muslim police officers to wear the hijab as part of their uniform. She said the police and judiciary are public entities and should appear to be neutral. As a result, the current ban will not be reversed.
Tajik said: "The Commission has received a fairly broad mandate and they have followed that. This is why they have raised the issue involving the use of religious symbols in relation to the uniform. The government addressed this matter in 2009 and has taken his stance. The use of religious symbols in relation to the police uniform is not allowed."
In 2012, the Norwegian supermarket chain KIWI and the Oslo University Hospital introduced new hijabs as part of staff uniforms. Hijabs have been permitted at the Scandinavian home products company IKEA since 2005.
On July 1, 2012, the Norwegian Defense Ministry began allowing uniformed soldiers to wear religious headgear such as hijabs, turbans and kippahs. In addition to headgear, soldiers are now also allowed to wear armbands containing religious symbols that have been engraved or mounted.
Not everyone is happy with the changes. Jan-Arild Ellingsen, a member of the conservative Progress Party who is also on the parliamentary defense committee, says that army uniforms give soldiers all the identification they need. Says Ellingsen, "The armed forces should be kept independent of ethnic and religious affiliations."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

Related Topics: Soeren Kern

Palestinians' Nazi-Style Youth Movement Prepares for Jihad

by Khaled Abu Toameh
February 1, 2013 at 4:30 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3569/palestinian-youth-movement-jihad

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More disturbing is that only a few of the dozens of Western-funded human rights organizations that operate in the Gaza Strip have raised their voice against Hamas's abuse of children. Even the United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF], which was created to work for children's rights, their survival, development and protection, has yet to condemn Hamas for recruiting school children to its military apparatus.

Thousands of Palestinian schoolchildren have been receiving military training in the Gaza Strip to prepare them for jihad against Israel.
According to Mohamed Siam, a senior official with the Hamas-run ministry, some 9,000 high school children have already joined 36 camps throughout the Gaza Strip and are being taught how to use various types of weapons and handle explosives.
Hamas says that the purpose of the camps is to prepare Palestinian children, both militarily and psychologically, for the "liberation of Palestine, from the Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea," in other words, all of Israel.
How can anyone talk about the two-state solution when thousands of Palestinian children are being trained to use weapons and explosives to replace Israel with an Islamic state? Does Mahmoud Abbas really believe that these schoolchildren will ever accept his strategy of peace with Israel? These are questions the West needs to ask itself before once again pressing for a two-state solution.
The training is being held under the supervision of the Hamas government's Ministry of Education, and the training camps have been named Al-Futuwwa [spiritual chivalry].
Al-Futuwwa was the name of the Hitler-Jugend [Hitler Youth] style of pan-Arab fascistic and nationalistic youth movement that existed in Iraq in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1938, the Al-Futuwwa youth organization sent a delegate to the Nuremberg Nazi party rally, and in turn hosted the Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach. In 1941, the fascistic pan-Arab Al-Muthanna Club and its Al-Futuwwa movement participated in the Farhud attack on Baghdad's Jewish community.
Last week, during a graduation ceremony for thousands of school children, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh declared that his movement was planning to establish a military academy for training and educating seventh and ninth graders. The goal, he said, is to prepare Palestinian children for jihad against the "Zionist entity."
Addressing the cadets, Haniyeh declared: "You are the future leaders. You will march your people toward freedom and dignity. The Al-Futuwwa will end in victory and the liberation of all Palestine, "from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea."
Not surprisingly, parents in the Gaza Strip have not protested against this form of child abuse. Many parents, in fact, seem to like the idea that their children are being trained how to handle explosives and various types of weapons.
More disturbing is that only a few of the dozens of Western-funded human rights organizations that operate in the Gaza Strip have raised their voices against Hamas's abuse of children. Even the United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF], which was created to work for children's rights, their survival, development and protection, has yet to condemn Hamas for recruiting school children to its military apparatus.
Many of Hamas's children will undoubtedly be sent to the battlefront during the next round of fighting with Israel. Some will also be dispatched on suicide missions against the "Zionist enemy," while others will be provided with assault rifles and rockets to be used against Israeli targets.
By poisoning the hearts and minds of schoolchildren, Hamas is raising an entire generation of Palestinians on glorification of suicide bombers, jihad and terrorism.
And this is happening at a time when some governments and leaders in the West are talking about the need to revive the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel — and at a time when the Palestinian Authority is making efforts to achieve unity with Hamas.
These are questions that Abbas needs to ask himself as he continues to seek unity with Hamas; and that the West might do well to ask itself, too.

Related Topics: Khaled Abu Toameh

Muslim Persecution of Christians: November, 2012
"The presence of a church here will offend us"

by Raymond Ibrahim
February 1, 2013 at 4:30 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3566/muslim-persecution-of-christians-november-2012

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A Christian Eritrean refugee, held hostage by Bedouin traffickers for three months in the Sinai, was given five days to raise $25,000 or face illegal organ harvesting of his kidney.

Reports of Christian persecution by Muslims around the world during the month of November include (but are not limited to) the following accounts. They are listed by form of persecution, and in country alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity:

Church Attacks

Egypt: Following Friday afternoon prayers in northern Cairo, Salafi Muslims went to the construction site of a Coptic Orthodox Church service center, hanging a sign that read, "Masjed El Rahman," or "Mosque of the Merciful." They claimed that the church did not have the necessary permits to exist, even though local officials confirmed the church did have them. The Salafis occupied the construction center for some 24 hours. One of them reportedly said: "We have a small mosque at the end of the street and the presence of a church here will offend us."
Indonesia: Authorities in West Java sealed shut the worship building of yet another Christian Church (HKI) congregation that had been meeting for 20 years, after prominent Muslims persuaded residents to withdraw their signatures approving the church's existence.
According to Indonesian law—and echoing Sharia law, which requires local Muslim approval for non-Muslim endeavors—60 Muslim signatures are required for the church to exist. Because many Muslims withdrew their signatures, police sealed off the building. "While other churches in West Java have faced loud protests from Islamists dedicated to close them down, last week's closure took place quietly in 10 minutes," said one source. Also, a mob numbering in the hundreds and grouped under an Islamic banner surrounded two separate churches, threatening to use force to stop the congregations from building additional structures in their compounds. Some 200 police and military held them at bay.
Kenya: A blast at a church inside a police compound in the town of Garissa killed a police officer, who also served as the church's pastor, and injured at least 13 other people. The Islamic terrorist organization, al-Shabaab ("the Youth") is believed to be responsible. Their latest strategy is to hire "poor youths from Christian backgrounds" and use them to bomb Kenya's churches. "Using Muslims with a Christian background make it difficult to identify and stop would-be attackers, as they can seamlessly blend into a Christian congregation," say church leaders.
Nigeria: November 25 was yet another bloody Sunday for church goers in the Muslim-majority north of Nigeria: 11 people were killed when the Protestant church of St. Andrew was attacked by two consecutive suicide bombings: Shortly after mass, one suicide-bomber drove a minibus, loaded with explosives, into the church. Then, after a group of soldiers and civilians gathered on the spot, another jihadi detonated a car bomb, leaving 11 dead and 30 injured. Most of the victims were members of the church choir. Separately, three more Christians were ambushed and killed as they were traveling to mass.
Syria: Several churches were targeted by U.S.-supported jihadis. A bomb exploded near yet another Syriac Orthodox Church in Aleppo. According to the Assyrian International News Agency, "Scores of people were injured and killed. Estimates put the number killed between 20 and 80. The bomb damaged the Al Kalima ["The Word"] school and the Syrian French Hospital, as well as a nursing home." Also, the historic Arabic Evangelical Church of Aleppo was mined with explosives and blown up "by armed men, for pure sectarian hatred," according to its pastor, Ibrahim Nasir, who further expressed "bitterness and sadness of all Syrian citizens" for an act that makes Christians "inconsolable": "Today is the day when we cry out to Christ to say: my God, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Also a car bomb exploded in front of the Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, in the city of Raqqah, in northeastern Syria, causing two deaths, injuring a woman, and "spreading terror in the population."
Tanzania: According to an activist, "As of May [about] 25 churches and convents have been destroyed. This destruction is mostly confined to [semi-autonomous] Zanzibar where the population is 99 percent Muslim and openly hostile to Christians." One of the latest incidents revolved around a Muslim boy challenging a Christian boy to urinate on a copy of the Koran, and claiming that whoever did so would be transformed into an animal. After the Christian boy took up the challenge, word spread, and Muslims rioted: "the Christian boy was threatened with being beheaded and at least five churches were destroyed," including the Seven Day Church, the Anglican Church and the Assemblies of God Church. "To date, no arrests have been made in connection with attacks on churches in Zanzibar, leading many to question whether the local government condones these activities," observed the activist.

Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Proselytism

Egypt: On November 28, a Cairo court sentenced to death seven Egyptian Christians tried in absentia for allegedly participating in the creation of the YouTube Muhammad movie, which prompted violent protests in many Muslim countries. "The seven accused persons were convicted of insulting the Islamic religion through participating in producing and offering a movie that insults Islam and its prophet," Judge Saif al-Nasr Soliman said. Many of the seven deny any involvement, and say they are being scapegoated for other reasons.
Iran: British Christian legislators expressed concern about the "serious and growing persecution and discrimination" of Iranian Christians and said that at least dozens of believers remain detained amid a crackdown on Christian converts in Iran. Britain's All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) said the British government should pressure Iran "to uphold the fundamental right of religious freedom for all Iranian people." They also urged the release of Christians, including Pastor Farshid Fathi, who has been held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison since December 2010.
Maldives: Officials at the Male' Ibrahim Nasir International Airport seized 11 books about Christianity, from a Bangladeshi expatriate, Jathish Biswas, who came to the Maldives via Sri Lanka. He was arrested, spent 23 days in jail, and was then deported. According to him, "authorities treated me as if I wanted to destroy their nation by bringing in Christian books. They stripped me almost naked to see if I were carrying anything else. Customs and police officials would ask me question after question and deny me proper food." An American Christian was also later arrested and deported for alleged links with Biswas.
Nigeria: A rumor that a Christian man "blasphemed" against Islam sparked a massive riot in the northern Nigeria town of Bichi. Four people were killed and shops were looted.
The riot came on the day the incoming head of the Anglican Church launched an initiative to promote "religious tolerance in Nigeria." According to a police official, "Rumors went round that someone blasphemed the Prophet [Muhammad] and there was a breakdown of law and order."
Pakistan: A Christian pastor, Karama Patras, was arrested after a Muslim mob attacked his home, and accused him of committing blasphemy, the highest punishment for which, according to Pakistan's penal code, is death. After conducting prayers in a Christian house, Muslims eavesdroppers overheard a discussion about the meat slaughtered during the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha, which they reported to other local Muslims; by the time the pastor "reached home, he heard appeals on mosques' loudspeakers of Muslim clerics calling for Muslims to join hands to punish [the] infidel Pastor to teach him a lesson for prohibition of this feast in Christianity." Muslim imams blasted on the loudspeakers from the minarets that "Pastor Karma Patras is [a] blasphemer and infidel liable to be killed," prompting hundreds of Muslims to attack his home, "mercilessly beating and kicking him and destroying his household," before police took him into custody. He has since been denied bail.
Somalia: Yet another Muslim convert to Christianity, 25-year-old Farhan Haji Mose, was attacked and executed by Islamic terrorists, Al-Shabaab, "the Youth." According to one of the witnesses—a crowd had assembled on a Friday to watch the slaughter of the Christian who embraced the "foreign religion of Christianity"—"His body was split into two, then carried away, only to be dumped near the beach of Barawa city." Friends and family did not risk recovering the body immediately, fearing that the militants would consider them guilty by association and kill them as well. According to the report, Al-Shabaab rebels have killed dozens of Christian converts from Islam since embarking on a campaign to rid Somalia of Christianity. The group seeks to impose an even stricter version of Sharia law on Somalia than the one enforced by the current transitional government in Mogadishu—a transitional government that, although portrayed as "moderate," also mandates the death penalty for apostates.

Dhimmitude

[General Abuse and Suppression of Non-Muslims as "Tolerated" Citizens]

Egypt: A 13-year-old Christian girl, Maggie Milad Fazez, while traveling by subway, had her hair shorn off by a veiled Muslim woman. When the girl entered the crowded train, she had inadvertently pushed the veiled woman to go inside, an act which led to a verbal exchange between them. The veiled woman told Maggie, who had long hair, "You don't know what I will do to you." When the schoolgirl left the train, she was shocked to find her hair cut off and lying on the collar of her jacket. Her father said that Maggie has abstained from eating food and is suffering psychologically. This was the second time in one week that a schoolgirl has had her hair cut off. The first was a girl in the first grade. One Coptic activist asked the Minister of Interior to find this veiled women who is cutting the hair of students and bring her to trial. Another veiled schoolteacher in Luxor is currently being tried for cutting off the hair of two of her students last month because they did not wear the Islamic hijab head-covering.
Pakistan: In a Catholic church in the diocese of Faisalabad, in Punjab, the destruction caused by throwing stones at the statue of the Virgin Mary "brought horror, fear, dismay and anxiety." According to Fr. Mushtaq, "The author of this latest act of violence was a young 26 year-old local Muslim."
Philippines: In Muslim-majority Mindanao, a Christian student and his Muslim girlfriend were shot by two motorcycle assassins. The 21-year-old man died; the woman was in serious condition. The motive of the attack is still unknown, but police is investigating whether the ambush was connected to the personal relationship of the victims. As the report correctly observes, "the relationship between a Muslim woman and a Christian man is considered 'haram' or forbidden among many Muslims."
Saudi Arabia: Following the conversion to Christianity and subsequent escape of a Saudi woman, the Wahhabi nation introduced a tracking system that monitors any cross-border movements by female Saudis. Using SMS technology, the tracking system alerts a woman's male guardian (father, husband, or other male relative) by text message when she leaves the country, even if they are travelling together. According to one Saudi writer, this latest move further shows how women are held under a "state of slavery" in the kingdom.
Sinai: A Christian Eritrean refugee held hostage by Bedouin traffickers for three months was given five days to raise USD $25,000 or face illegal organ harvesting. His case highlights a continuing lack of protection and assistance for refugees and migrants who are routinely abducted and abused by people traffickers in the Sinai Peninsular. Philemon Semere, 22, escaped from Eritrea to Ethiopia in 2010, where he sang in the church choir in Adi Harish Refugee Camp. Early in 2012, he traveled to Sudan and was attempting to reach Israel when he was abducted by traffickers, and taken to one of several torture and extortion facilities in the Sinai. He was beaten and abused regularly and, at that time, his captors asked him to provide USD $33,000 to ensure his release, or lose a kidney. Although it is unknown what became of him, a recent BBC report adds: "It is impossible, from so far away, to verify Philemon's case. But Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and other non-governmental organisations who have studied the kidnap trade, say it bears all the hallmarks of what is now an awful but thriving business in the Sinai region. Convinced that his family does not have the money to meet the kidnapper's demands, Philemon is clearly becoming desperate as their deadline nears: 'Please help. Please help me Mike. I haven't enough money, they will kill me. Please help me.'"
Syria: At least three more Christians were kidnapped in the context of the U.S.-supported jihad against Assad. Two of the victims were young men; the kidnappers demanded $100,000 USD in ransom for each. The third victim is a 17-year-old girl, who was abducted from the street by four men after they assaulted her 16-year-old brother, beat him unconscious, and drove off with her. "Violence against Assyrians" the report states, "has sharply risen in the last 12 months, much of it perpetrated by the rebel militia, especially by the Jihadist elements of the rebels."

About this Series

Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching pandemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:
1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
2) To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death those who "offend" Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like dhimmis, or second-class, "tolerated" citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.
Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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