GATESTONE INSTITUTE: The school forces girls to sit at the back of classrooms; prohibits stringed instruments; and requires female pupils to cede their places in queues to the male students. Farah Ahmed, headmistress at one of these taxpayer-funded schools, has described the teaching of English as "one of the most damaging subjects."
In recent weeks, British media, political figures and commentators have been drawn into an angry and overwrought debate on the burqa (and its cousin, the niqab) -- the all-enveloping outer garment favoured by, or perhaps forced upon, a considerable number of British Muslim women.
The sudden spotlight was switched on as a result of two simultaneous challenges to the conflict between the burqa and a free society. First, the Birmingham Metropolitan College recently decided, after a well-publicized protest against university authorities, to un-ban the garment on campus after eight years of unopposed proscription. Second, during a recent fraud trial, Judge Peter Murphy ruled that the accused, a Muslim woman, must remove her niqab while giving evidence in court.
While ministers, political commentators, civil rights groups and tabloid papers hotly contest the ethics and practical details of a theoretical ban, little attention is being paid, aside from the occasional newspaper article, to a far more alarming problem: schools where girls as young as 11 are forced to wear the burqa or niqab. » | Samuel Westrop | Thursday, October 17, 2013
