Islamic State Fanatics Put Up Billboards Ordering Women to Wear the Burkha...or Else

The billboard appeared in the Libyan city of Sirte

DAILY EXPRESS: ISLAMIC State (ISIS) fighters have put up huge billboards ordering women to wear the Burkha or face cruel and severe punishments.

Enormous hoardings setting out the fanatics' oppressive dress code have been put up in a city in Libya held by the militants.

The posters set out seven rules for women, which include making sure that all body parts are covered and a ban on see-through and tight-fitting clothes.

Brand names are also forbidden, as are 'masculine garments' and designs that will attract male attention.

Finally, the Jihadists state that all "perfumed" clothes are heretical and should not be worn. » | Nick Gutteridge | Wednesday, July 15, 2015

'Burqa Not Conducive to Western Liberal Society': We Should Follow Ban Says Ukip

SUNDAY EXPRESS: THE wearing of the full face veil in public should be banned in Britain, said Ukip's acting leader Paul Nuttall last night.

His comments followed an announcement of a new law by the Government in the Netherlands, approved by the cabinet sitting in The Hague, which will ban the wearing of all face coverings including ski-masks and helmets in certain public places.

Mr Nuttall, the party's deputy leader, was recently placed in temporary charge of UKIP while Nigel Farage takes a break.

Last night he described the Dutch proposal as eminently sensible, noting that it echoed a decision by both France and Belgium to issue similar rulings.

Speaking to the Sunday Express, he said: Belgium and France and now the Netherlands have argued that the burqa is not conducive to western liberal society, and that people's faces need to be exposed so they can communicate and integrate.

This all sounds pretty sensible stuff to me. Leading French feminist groups supported the French and Belgian ban, with the International League for Women's Rights saying: The full-face veil, by literally burying the body and the face, constitutes a true deletion of the woman as an individual in public.

Mr Nuttall added: Should we follow this and ban the burqa in this country? Yes. Personally, I think this is about civility, not religion. » | Marco Giannangeli – Exclusive | Sunday, May 24, 2015

What's It Like Being a Muslim Woman in Scotland Today?

HERALD SCOTLAND: 'A THREAT", "a foreigner" and "oppressed".

Those are the three phrases Scotland's young people think of when it comes to Muslim women, according to a study of people aged 11 to 24 by the Amina Muslim Women's Resource Centre in Glasgow.

Staff from Amina, who visit schools and youth groups to educate young non-Muslims about racial stereotyping, found the results shocking considering young people are considered more open-minded and tolerant than their parents and grandparents.

While many Muslim women say such stereotypes do not shape their daily lives, others claim there is a growing hostility towards them.

In the coming weeks, three major events will address the question of what it means to be a Muslim woman in Scotland. One will address how the debate surrounding the Islamic veil is affecting Scottish communities, while the others will look at the experiences of Muslim women and Islamophobia in Scotland.

One young Muslim woman summed up her experiences of being seen as a threat, a foreigner or an oppressed victim, saying the sense of distrust was "subtle" and "something you can feel", adding: "You go in an environment where you are the only person with brown skin: people will be polite to you but you can feel there is a distance, something not spoken ... This is how we feel."

This, as well as the more outrageous incidences of racist abuse, is what these events hope to address. » | Special report by Matty Sutton and Imran Azam | Sunday, November 24, 2013

David Cameron Supports Muslim Veil Ban in Schools and Courts

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: David Cameron has promised to support institutions such as schools, courts and immigration centres which ask people to remove Muslim veils.

The Prime Minister said that he would issue new guidelines to judges, teachers and immigration officers telling them when they can ask people to remove clothing such as the niqab, which conceals the whole face.

He told the BBC that generally people should be allowed to wear what they want, but said that exceptions should be made so that public bodies and staff could function properly.

“We’re a free country and people should be free to wear whatever clothes they like in public or in private. But we should support the institutions that need to put in place rules so that those institutions can work property,” he said.

Mr Cameron was speaking to the BBC at the start of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. » | James Kirkup, Political Editor | Sunday, September 29, 2013

France's Burkha Ban Sparks Violence across Paris after Police Try to Arrest Woman for Wearing a Veil and Pregnant Woman Is Attacked for Covering Her Face
MAIL ONLINE: Two men put pregnant woman, 21, in hospital - undergoing treatment / Around 60 people attacked police in Argenteuil, north west of the capital / Women guilty of wearing niqabs can be fined the equivalent of around £130

Violent clashes have broken out in a Paris suburb after police tried to arrest a Muslim woman for wearing a veil.

It came as two men today put a 21-year-old pregnant woman in hospital for covering her face with a veil on the same council estate.

In what is being viewed as a severe test of France's burka ban, around 60 people attacked police on Wednesday night in Argenteuil, a commuter town to the north west of the capital.

Under a law which came into force in 2011, women found guilty of wearing niqabs in public can be fined the equivalent of around £130.

But when officers approached the unnamed woman, passers-by became involved in a 'riot' and police used tear gas and flash-ball shots to disperse them, according to a police source.

'The police were attacked' the source told Le Parisien newspaper. 'They were insulted and beaten, including punches'. Two men aged 23 and 37, including a cousin of the young veil-wearer, were arrested and placed in custody under suspicion of violence and public order offences.

In the end, 40 riot police had to be called to the area to restore order, said the source. » | Nabila Ramdani | Thursday, June 13, 2013

Tory Councillor Suspended for Posting a Facebook Picture Which 'Compared Muslim Children in Burkas to Bin Bags' Defends It as 'Blokeish Banter'

MAIL ONLINE: Enfield councillor Chris Joannides suspended by Conservative Party / Asked friends to send him football scores during meetings and complained about missing his favourite TV shows

A local councillor has been suspended for posting a comment on Facebook comparing Muslim children wearing burkas to bin bags.

Chris Joannides also messaged friends during meetings with his constituents asking for updates on football scores and complaining about missing his favourite television programmes.

The Conservative councillor for Enfield, in north London, has denied being Islamophobic and defended his comments as 'blokeish banter'.

Mr Joannides posted a photo showing a woman and child dressed in burkas standing next to two bin bags.

He wrote underneath: 'I saw her standing there and I told her she had three beautiful children. She didn't have to get all p***ed off and threaten me. It was an honest mistake!' » | Hugo Gye | Thursday, February 07, 2013

Saudi Arabian Cleric Declares Babies Should Wear Burkas

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A Saudi cleric's declaration that babies should wear burkas to protect them from sexual attacks has drawn widespread criticism.

Sheikh Abdullah Daoud said all female newborns should wear a full face veil in an interview with an Islamic television station.

He told al-Majd TV that wearing a burka would stop incidents of sexual attacks on babies, and tried to support his claim by quoting unnamed medical and security sources.

The interview took place last year, but it was picked up by Al Arabiya news [sic] and social media websites at the weekend, provoking outrage and comments that such claims damage the reputation of Saudi Arabia and Islam.

Sheikh Mohammad al-Jzlana, a former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, urged Muslims to ignore "unregulated" fatwas and said the ruling was "denigrating to Islam and Shariah and made Islam look bad". » | Barney Henderson | Monday, February 04, 2013

Burka Ban Proposal Thrown Out by Parliament

SWISSINFO.CH: The House of Representatives has voted against banning burkas worn by Muslim women from public spaces in Switzerland, sounding the death knell for an initiative put forward by the canton of Aargau several years ago.

Following a March Senate vote with the same result, the house decided by 93 votes to 87 that the initiative would not go through.

Speaking for the majority, centre-right Radical Party parliamentarian Hugues Hiltpold said banning the burka would be excessive and would encourage tourists from Muslim countries to have negative opinions of the country.

“Today in Switzerland, wearing this type of clothing for religious reasons doesn’t pose any problems in daily life and is a rare practice in the Swiss Muslim community,” Hiltpold added.

“Banning the niqab or the burka in Switzerland would have adverse consequences for Swiss Muslims.” » | swissinfo.ch and agencies | Friday, September 28, 2012

MUSLIMS IN SWITZERLAND: The Muslim community in Switzerland accounts for about 4.5 per cent of the population.

Most Muslim immigrants came from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey. The community includes up to 100 nationalities.

The number of Muslims doubled between the censuses of 1990 and 2000, largely boosted by an influx of refugees and asylum seekers, including from the war in the former Yugoslavia.

There are about 200 mosques and prayer houses in Switzerland, but only four have a minaret. On November 29, 2009, 57 per cent of voters supported a people’s initiative to ban the construction of new minarets in Switzerland. This was in the wake of heated debates and legal battles at a local level about requests by mosques to build more minarets. [Source: swissinfo.ch]

Egyptian TV Channel Caters to Fully Veiled Women

NEW ZEALAND HERALD: The only visible female face in the Cairo-based studio of a new Islamic TV channel for women is that of a puppet. The human stars are all veiled from head to toe, with only their eyes showing.

Maria TV is run primarily by women. They operate cameras, present shows and interview female guests ranging from doctors to students of Islamic theology. But they cannot show their faces during the broadcasts, and no men are allowed on air during the female programming, not even for phone-ins.

Shrouded in long flowing black robes and scarves known as niqabs, with black gloves to match the women are distinguishable only by their voices and the slits for their eyes.

The channel, which was launched on Saturday to coincide with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, is the brainchild of Ahmed Abdallah as part of a broader effort to expand his religious pan-Arab satellite station Ummah TV.

The shows range from beauty programs where presenters simply discuss make-up tricks without actually showing any to shows about medicine and marriage.

The puppet is used in a satirical show that pokes fun at major news stories.

"Even if you have the whole house lit with candles, do not be upset when your husband comes home from a long day at work and does not notice," said Abeer Shahin, the presenter of a show called "First Year of Marriage."

Abdallah, known by his nickname Abu Islam, said his goal is to show women that they do not have to reveal their beauty to the world in order to be seen. "I am broadcasting a new era for women who wear niqab, for a new kind of woman," said Abdallah, who wore a traditional white Egyptian robe for men known as a galabeya.

That effort mirrors the cultural changes under way in Egypt since conservative Muslims rose to power after Hosni Mubarak's secular regime was ousted during last year's revolution. » | AP | Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Four French Soldiers Killed by Burka-wearing Bomber
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A suicide bomber dressed in a burka blew himself up near a French patrol in Afghanistan on Saturday, killing four soldiers and wounding five in one of the deadliest attacks on the French contingent in months.

The attack occurred in the mountainous Kapisa province in the east of the country, an area mainly patrolled by a French force under Nato command.

"It was an unfortunate incident. There was a patrol of coalition soldiers in a small bazaar and they were attacked by a suicide bomber wearing a burka," said Sediq Sediqqi, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman.

French President Francois [sic] Hollande's office in Paris confirmed that the soldiers involved in the attack were French.

A statement from his office said among the five wounded, three were in a serious condition, and Mr Hollande would dispatch defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to Afghanistan on Sunday. » | Saturday, June 09, 2012

Bounty Offered to Report Face Veil
A Belgian right-wing politician has offered a financial reward to anyone who would report a woman wearing a face veil to the police. Face veils in public, worn by a small minority of Muslim women, was banned by the government last year. But right wing groups say the ban isn't being enforced because police are afraid it might lead to riots. Al Jazeera's Bhanu Bhatnagar reports.

George Galloway Speaks to 3 Anti-burqa Callers!
George Galloway speaks to a trio of Burqa hating callers (on the recent ban of wearing the burqa in public in France), each one with their own take on the Islamic women's dress.

1st caller thinks that the Burqa is intimidating to him. The caller challenges Galloway if he thinks if Nikolas Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner. Galloway believes the former is a racist and the latter not. He justifies the calling a Sarko as a racist because of his policies on the Roma (gypsy) people. Double standards here. The caller is fine with the burqa ban but doesn't like the rounding up of the Roma people. The caller invokes Saudi Arabia (several times) regarding under age marriages and polygamy (None of his business say Galloway).

2nd caller claims that Muslim husbands force their Muslim wives to wear the burqa without citing a credible source. She also invokes the Saudi Arabia agreement like with the previous caller. Galloway points out that all societies are male dominated.

3rd caller apparently has no clue about how many Muslim women in the UK actually wear the burqa. Galloway states that 99% of Muslim women in the UK do not cover their faces.

Originally broadcasted on 17th September 2010.

The Burqa Battle – France
As Sarkozy's Burqa ban becomes a reality, the debate continues: is the Muslim cover-all a threat to Western society, or is banning the Burqa xenophobic and robbing women of their religious identity?

Following the debate across France in the run-up to the ban, this report offers an insight into both sides of the case. In mosques tempers flare:"You are allowed to dress how you want, but I don't have that right. Is this freedom?". Yet Sarkozy supporters are adamant that the veil represents an affront to French values and that the president even has the support of an Imam of a Mosque in Paris, who says that the ban "gives a positive image of Islam".

A Film By ABC Australia
Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
May 2010

Belgian Politician Risks Muslim Backlash after Using Teenage Daughter Dressed in Burka and Bikini for Campaign against Islam

MAIL ONLINE: A Belgian politician has risked causing uproar among Muslims after starting a 'Women Against Islamization' campaign featuring his 19-year-old daughter wearing a burka and a bikini.

Filip Dewinter, leader of the far-right Vlaams Belang party, uses a shot of his daughter An-Sofie Dewinter in the dark blue bikini for the political campaign.

The glamorous teenager dons a burka that covers her head and face, while the rest of the Muslim garment is draped over her back.

The provocative image is likely to inflame tensions among Islamic groups and nationalists in the racially-divided country.

The poster shows the words 'Freedom or Islam?' written on a red bar across Ms Dewinter's breasts.

Further down the poster a black panel with the words 'You choose!' is seen covering the teenager's crotch.

The extremist Vlaams Belang party claims that it wants to convince women to take a stand against Islam. » | Rick Dewsbury | Friday, February 03, 2012

Canada: Muslim Canadian Congress Hoping to Expand Canadian Burka Ban

The Late Christopher Hitchens on the Burka
The French legislators who seek to repudiate the wearing of the veil or the burka – whether the garment covers “only” the face or the entire female body – are often described as seeking to impose a “ban”. To the contrary, they are attempting to lift a ban: a ban on the right of women to choose their own dress, a ban on the right of women to disagree with male and clerical authority, and a ban on the right of all citizens to look one another in the face. The proposed law is in the best traditions of the French republic, which declares all citizens equal before the law and – no less important – equal in the face of one another.

On the door of my bank in Washington, DC is a printed notice politely requesting me to remove any form of facial concealment before I enter the premises. The notice doesn’t bore me or weary me by explaining its reasoning. A person barging through those doors with any sort of mask would incur the right and proper presumption of guilt.

This presumption should operate in the rest of society. I would indignantly refuse to have any dealings with a nurse or doctor or teacher who hid his or her face, let alone a tax inspector or customs official.

The particular demand to consider the veil and the burka as an exemption applies only to women. And it also applies only to religious practice (and, unless we foolishly pretend otherwise, only to one religious practice). This at once tells you all you need to know. Society is being asked to abandon an immemorial tradition of equality and openness in order to gratify one faith, one faith that has a very questionable record in respect of females. [Source: The Daily Telegraph] | Friday, December 16, 2011

Netherlands to Ban the Burka
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Holland is to become the latest European country to ban the burka, despite the fact that fewer than 100 Dutch women are thought to wear the face-covering Islamic dress.

The Dutch government will agree to introduce a ban on Friday making the Netherlands the third country in Europe to prohibit the burka, behind France and Belgium.

Women caught wearing a burka in public, on the streets, public transport and in schools or hospitals will be fined £330.

There will be exemptions for mosques, or other religious buildings and for foreign women travelling through the transit lounges of international Dutch airports. » | Bruno Waterfield | Thursday, September 15, 2011

Toronto: Un politicien veut freiner le «processus d'islamisation»
CANOË: TORONTO – Un politicien néerlandais connu pour ses prises de position radicales contre l'islam soutient que le Canada doit interdire la construction de mosquées et bannir la burka afin de freiner le « processus d'islamisation » du pays.

La France et la Belgique ont banni le port du voile intégral dans les lieux publics. La Hollande est dans le processus d'interdire le port du niqab.

« Si tu veux conserver ta culture islamique, reste dans ton pays », a tranché Geert Wilders, lors d'une entrevue accordée lundi à Ezra Levant à l'émission The Source sur les ondes de Sun News à Toronto.

Geert Wilders, chef du Parti pour la liberté, en Hollande, s’est fait remarquer, au cours des dernières années, pour ses attaques virulentes à l’endroit de l’islam en général, qu’il accuse notamment de brimer la liberté des gens et de répandre la haine contre ceux qui ne croient pas en l'idéologie.

Wilders, qui en est à sa première visite au Canada, a indiqué que l'islam n'est pas une religion, mais plutôt « une idéologie totalitaire ». » | Agence QMI | Lundi 09 Mai 2011

Two Views on France’s Burqa Ban

CNN: France's Islamic veil ban spurs passionate reaction worldwide » | Michael Saba, CNN | Monday, April 25, 2011

’Wear Scarf Or We Will Kill You’, Muslims Told Woman
DAILY EXPRESS: ISLAMIC extremists bent on imposing Sharia law have threatened women and told them to cover up their heads, it has been claimed.

One woman was told she faced death if she failed to don the hijab, or headscarf, in east London’s Tower Hamlets.

Signs warning the area is a “gay-free zone” have also been seen while posters at bus shelters featuring models and a Bollywood film have been defaced with black paint. Incidents involving posters have also happened in Birmingham. » | Anil Dawar | Monday, April 18, 2011

THE SUN: Wear hijab or die: ISLAMIC extremists bent on establishing Sharia law in Britain have threatened to kill women who do not cover their heads. » | Anthony France | Monday, April 18, 2011