Turkish PM raps France for face veil ban, militants online urge punishment for Paris
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused France of violating the freedom of religion on Wednesday after Paris began enforcing a law barring Muslim women from wearing full face veils in public. He told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that Turkey was the only Muslim country that had copied the French law on secularism, or separating church and state.
“It’s quite ironic to see that secularism is today under debate in Europe and is undermining certain freedoms,” he said. “Today in France, there is no respect for individual religious freedom,” he said. The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe monitors human rights across the continent. Read the full story here.
Meanwhile, the face veil ban has triggered calls on militant online forums for armed retaliation against the country, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring service said on Wednesday. Some contributors to the messages seen on the password-protected, invitation-only militant chatrooms this week called on al Qaeda’s North Africa arm to “deter” France by staging armed attacks, the SITE service said.
The anonymous threats, presented by the sites as comments by individuals, carry none of the weight of published audio or video statements by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda or similar established armed groups seeking to attack Western targets. But Western security officials are concerned that sermons, discussions and videos published on online forums and social networking sites are increasingly used by militants to encourage sympathisers to attempt attacks.
“Sarkozy, leave our sisters alone or we will truly be obligated to act on our words,” wrote one participant with the online identity of “Jabeen of Abdullah Azzam”, writing on the Arabic-language Shumukh al-Islam forum, SITE reported. “Declare a war against crusader France!” wrote “al-katebat al-khdra” (the green battalion) on Shumukh al-Islam. “France with such action brought destruction and woes on itself.”
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France starts ban on full-face veil, factbox on veils in Europe
France’s ban on full face veils, a first in Europe, went into force on Monday, making anyone wearing the Muslim niqab or burqa in public liable to a fine of 150 euros or lessons in French citizenship.
Mainstream Muslim groups, which had a six-month grace period after the law was passed to explain it to their supporters, opted not to protest at its entry into force. “We’ve already had our debate about the law and now our position is clear: we respect French law 100 percent,” said a spokesman for the French Council of the Muslim Faith.
Police said they had detained five people, two men and three women, at the small protest in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. The protestors were held for identity checks because their demonstration had not been authorised, not because they were wearing forbidden clothing, a policeman told Reuters.
“It’s so stupid what they’ve done with this law, because now people will wear the (full-face veil) not out of faith but because they are looking for a confrontation,” said Hager Amer, a 27-year-old Muslim woman.
France’s five-million-strong Muslim minority is Western Europe’s largest, but fewer than 2,000 women are believed actually to wear a full face veil. Many still oppose the law, however, on the grounds of the precedent it sets.
Read the full story by Nick Vinocur here. An earlier story can be found here: France’s ban on full face veils goes into force .
I feel better about the French law against appearing veiled in public after learning that it applies also to Christian students: They too cannot wear large or conspicuous emblems in national buildings, which in France includes schools. It would have been better, removing the perception of anti-Muslim bias had this too been extended to persons in other public places.
France fought back more than a century ago against the evil tide of religious superstition which has done so much damage to my own USA. Kudos to her in persevering in this effort.
France’s ban on full face veils goes into force
France’s ban on full face veils, a first in Europe, went into force Monday, exposing anyone who wears the Muslim niqab or burqa in public to fines of 150 euros (£131.90). France’s five-million-strong Muslim minority is Western Europe’s largest, but fewer than 2,000 women are believed actually to wear a full face veil. Many Muslim leaders have said they support neither the veil nor the law banning it.
The timing is sensitive after France’s ruling political party, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP, called a debate on the place of Islam in France, a move that some say risked stigmatising a portion of the population.
Police received a guide last week to help implement the ban. It tells them not to remove veils by force. It also notes that the ban does not apply inside private cars but reminds policemen such cases can be dealt with under road safety rules.
A Muslim property dealer, who is urging women to keep wearing the veil if they want to, has urged supporters to meet outside Notre Dame cathedral in central Paris for a silent prayer during the day. He has also pledged to auction off a house near Paris to raise one million euros for a fund to pay the fees for any woman fined for wearing a full face veil in public.
French police arrested 59 people Saturday who turned up for a banned protest over the veil ban, one of them on arrival in France from Britain, according to a police spokesman. Twenty of those arrested had turned up for the prohibited protest at the Place de la Nation in eastern Paris wearing the full veil.
Rachid Nekkaz, the man who called for the Notre Dame prayer, said in a webcast that he was putting a property worth around two million euros up for sale to help fund his campaign. “I am calling on all free women who so wish, to wear the veil in the street and engage in civil disobedience,” he said. Here is his statement in French: (Rachid Nekkaz: “Je paierai les amendes… by oumma)
For more on the ban, see the government’s website “The Republic lives with an open face” (La République se vit à visage découvert) in French. It includes an information pamphlet and a copy of the Marianne poster pictured above that is meant to be printed out and distributed locally.
French police arrest protesters before burqa ban goes into effect
French police have arrested 59 people who turned up for a banned protest over the banning of the Muslim full face veil, a police spokesman said. The measure goes into force on Monday and prohibits wearing the full veil, the burqa, in all public places, with a 150 euro ($216) fine for offenders.
The spokesman said 20 of those arrested on Saturday had turned up for the prohibited protest at the Place de la Nation in eastern Paris wearing the full veil. One person was arrested on arrival in France from Britain and one came from Belgium.
President Nicolas Sarkozy and his ruling conservative party, the UMP, face presidential and parliamentary elections in the second quarter of 2012 and have angered many moderates by calling for a debate on the place of Islam in France.
Most French people are of Roman Catholic background but France is home to around 5 million Muslims.
Five of those arrested have been detained in custody, one on a count of possessing a weapon, the police spokesman said. All were being questioned.
via French police arrest protesters before burqa ban | News by Country | Reuters.
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Boycott and protests set stage for French Islam debate
France’s ruling conservatives are pressing ahead with a public debate on Islam and secularism on Tuesday despite criticism that it is an excuse to pander to far-right voters ahead of a general election next year. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party said in December that it would host a public forum to address fears about Islam’s role in French society, following controversy over Muslim street prayers, halal-only restaurants and full-face Islamic veils.
But a hail of criticism from religious leaders and some party members has forced the UMP to downsize the event and fight off accusations that a focus on Islam will provide cover for the airing of anti-Muslim prejudices among the French.
“They can’t cancel it now,” said Jean-Francois Doridot, an analyst at the Ipsos polling agency. “It’s a sort of trap that is closing around the UMP, and they are trying to get themselves out of it one way or another.”
Amid sharp criticism from religious leaders, party officials have bickered over the need to hold a debate at all, France’s largest Muslim group has announced a boycott, and Prime Minister Francois Fillon declined his invitation to attend.
The guest list for Tuesday’s debate has yet to be confirmed, but Interior Minister Claude Gueant — who came under fire recently for saying the French “no longer felt at home” — will attend, as will party spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.
With France’s controversial ban on full-face veils going into effect next week, Gueant defended the debate by saying that some Muslim practices were problematic and needed to be addressed. “In 1905, there were very few Muslims in France, today they are between five and six million,” Gueant told journalists on a trip to western France. “This growth in the number of faithful and some behaviours pose a problem. It’s obvious that the street prayers are shocking to a number of our compatriots.”
France to enforce ban on full Muslim face veils from April
France will start enforcing a ban next month on full Islamic face veils, officials said on Thursday, meaning any veiled woman can be summoned to a police station and asked to remove her face-covering or pay a fine. Officials say the law is mainly symbolic and police will not call in every veiled woman they see to avoid stigmatising Muslims.
The ban forbids wearing any garment concealing the face in a public space, namely the street, public transport, shops, schools, courtrooms, hospitals and government buildings. From April 11, police are instructed to summon veil-wearers to a station, where they will be asked to remove the garment for “identification” and leave it off. If the wearer refuses to remove it they will be fined up to 150 euros ($208).
When France passed the ban on full face veils last year, Muslim leaders voiced concern it could lead to veiled women being unfairly treated by police or singled out for harassment. “My gut reaction is to say this is all a bit clumsy,” said Moussa Niambele, the imam of a mosque in the north of Paris. “You are stopped in public by the police and forced to follow them to the station like an undesirable person. This is altogether too much ceremony.”
France’s Muslim community of 5 million is Europe’s largest. Fewer than 3,000 women wear the face veil, the goverment says. As part of its public relations effort, the government plans to roll out a website with the URL “www.visage-decourvert.gouv.fr” (which translates as “uncovered-face.gouv.fr”) and print posters and pamphlets to be passed out in city halls.
Read the full story by Nick Vinocur here. Here is the full text of the decree in French.
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France plans nation-wide Islam and secularism debate
France’s governing party plans to launch a national debate on the role of Islam and respect for French secularism among Muslims here, two issues emerging as major themes for the presidential election due next year. Jean-François Copé, secretary general of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party, said the debate would examine issues such as the financing and building of mosques, the contents of Friday sermons and the education of the imams delivering them.
The announcement, coming after a meeting of UMP legislators with Sarkozy on Wednesday, follows the president’s declaration last week that multiculturalism had failed in France. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron have made similar statements in recent months that were also seen as aimed at Muslim minorities there. France’s five-million strong Muslim minority is Europe’s largest.
Copé said the debate, due to start in early April, would ask “how to organise religious practice so that it is compatible in our country with the rules of our secular republic.”
UMP parliamentarians said Sarkozy told them they had to lead this debate to ensure it stays under control. The far-right National Front, reinvigorated with its new leader Marine Le Pen, has recently begun a campaign criticising Muslims here.
“Our party, and then parliament, must take on this subject,” they quoted Sarkozy as saying. “I don’t want prayers in the streets, or calls to prayer. We had a debate on the burqa and that was a good thing. We need to agree in principle about the place of religion in 2011.”
France has sought to keep religion out of the public sphere since it officially separated the Catholic Church and the state in 1905. The growth of a Muslim minority in recent decades has posed new challenges that lead to sometimes heated debates. The government banned headscarves in state schools in 2004 and outlawed full face veils in public last year. But there are no rules about halal meals in schools, for example, or whether Muslims can pray in the streets outside an overcrowded mosque.
The French government held a country-wide debate on national identity in 2009-2010 that preceded the full face veil ban. Many Muslims criticised the debate, saying it turned into a forum to stigmatise them and let people air biased views about Islam.
Conservative German state bans burqas for civil servants
Hesse, a state run by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, on Wednesday became the first German region to ban Muslim face veils for public sector workers.
Hesse Interior Minister Boris Rhein announced it was “not acceptable” for the teacher in Frankfurt to wear a face veil because “public sector workers are obligated to have neutral religious and political views”.
The decision was prompted by a local teacher who had told her school she wanted to wear a burqa in the classroom after returning from maternity leave. She had not previously worn one.
Debates about outlawing burqas have spread across Europe after France banned the Muslim face veils.
Only a small minority of Muslim women in Europe cover their faces, but their veils have become symbols for Europeans troubled by problems such as the economic crisis, immigration and Muslim integration.
A poll last year showed 61 percent of Germans favoured a burqa ban. Ban supporters include a Catholic bishop in Bavaria, and also the country’s most prominent feminist, Alice Schwarzer. But Germany’s interior and justice ministers have opposed a ban.
Dutch may introduce burqa ban as early as 2011
The Netherlands could ban full face veils worn by some Muslim women,as soon as next year, Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. Wilders’ populist Freedom Party is the third largest in parliament and provides crucial support to the minority ruling coalition in exchange for the government taking a tougher line on Islam and immigration from non-Western countries.
His party has grown in popularity largely because of his outspoken criticism of Islam, which he describes as “a violent ideology.” He has been charged with inciting hatred against Muslims for comparing Islam to Nazism. The case is due to start over again following a request for new judges.
“We are not a single issue party but the fight against a fascist ideology Islam is for us of the utmost importance,” said Wilders, who argues his comments about Islam are protected by freedom of speech.
Wilders said immigration from Muslim countries “is very dangerous to the Netherlands. We believe our country is based on Christianity, on Judaism, on humanism, and we believe the more Islam we get, the more it will not only threaten our culture and our own identity but also our values and our freedom.”
The burqa ban, which his party agreed as part of a pact with the minority coalition, is due to come into force within four years and possibly as soon as next year or 2012, he said.
One might argue that this burqa ban is long overdue and that this outfit symbolises non-interaction, non-integration and distance. One must find it impossible to start an introduction to someone whose eyes are hardly visible and if the eyes are visible it’s the outfit that stifles any introduction let alone conversation and friendship. This is precisely what some old gentleman used to say from years ago; ‘it’s not the West one should watch out for; they won’t take your land and freedom … but it is Islam, a political and religious stand which is altogether different from what everyone had known that one should worry about’. And now it seems Geert Wilders must have seen the light, so to speak for no one like him have said that Islam is ‘incompatible with freedom of discussion and speech’ even though politicians are witnessing and seeing the obvious.
Much ado about nothing: fine for niqab-wearing French driver dropped
A French police tribunal has annulled a 22 euro ($29.50) fine against a woman found wearing a niqab while driving in the western city of Nantes last April. The case fuelled not just one but two separate debates in France, one on banning the “burqa” and another on polygamy among immigrants. Full veils have been legally banned, the polygamy debate has temporarily fizzled out and Sandrine Mouleres, the Muslim convert who challenged the fine, seems to have come out a winner. For now, at least…
The tribunal annulled the traffic ticket issued by officers who argued that Mouleres could not see properly while wearing her niqab, which covered her face but left an opening for her eyes. As her lawyer Jean-Michel Pollono put it: “This means one can drive today with a niqab. There is no danger as long as whatever the driver wears doesn’t block her vision. A niqab moves with the head.”
The second debate, about polygamy, arose when it was reported that Mouleres was one of four wives of an Algerian-born man, Liès Hebbadj, and he might be collecting family allowances for all four. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux suggested he might be stripped of his French nationality if found guilty of these allegations. Hebbadj fought back by saying he doesn’t have four wives, but one wife and three mistresses (and 12 children among them). “If one can be stripped of one’s French nationality for having mistresses, then many French could lose theirs,” said Hebbadj, a halal butcher in Nantes.
This new twist in the DWV (driving while veiled) story brought up an interesting question. Now that France has banned the niqab in public, what would the legal situation be for Mouleres if police stopped her these days? Pollono said the car was considered a private space but he was not sure how a court would classify a car driving on a public road. Nor was he sure whether she would have to take off her niqab when she gets out of the car.
This turn of events doesn’t mean France is warming up to Muslim women’s headgear. Also on Monday, a labour tribunal in Mantes-la-Jolie west of Paris confirmed the 2008 firing of a woman from a private creche because she refused to take off her headscarf. The tribunal rules that the creche could apply the same secular principle (laïcité) as public creches where religious clothing is banned under a 2004 law.
Well Done to this brave woman, may Allah reward her.
I am waiting for the Republican Secular French to ban the Kippa, the cap that the Jews wear and the Turban that Seeks wear, as they to are open religious symbols.
It wont happen, as this is about the propaganda towards Islam, based on fear, ignorance and hatred.
I am a convert to Islam and wear the Niqaab, out of my own free will, and it is liberating.I am proud to wear it, as it is my religious right.
I would say to other Muslim, use the spending power you have to hit the French where it hurts, dont spend your hard earned money on a country which represses women and Islam, and yet its fine to have sxx in open and nobody bats an eyelid
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