Posted on 04/26/2003 3:30:34 AM PDT by Doctor13
A debate over the right of Muslim girls to wear headscarves to school is raging in France, with government ministers facing allegations of racism.
The arguments date back more than a decade, but were reignited last weekend by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who insisted Muslim women remove their headscarves for identity card photographs.
He was booed by a 10,000-strong gathering of Muslims, the Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UIOF). A former UIOF leader, Abdallah Ben Mansour, responded by comparing government rules on ID card photographs to Nazi laws against Jews.
"A law forced Jews to wear a yellow star, and it was overturned," he said.
"As long as the law bans the veil, we will respect it, but we will demand that it is changed."
The next day a Muslim woman driving instructor interviewed by France-2 television described the 1999 ID card ruling as "a new form of racism".
But in two schools - one in Lyon, and one near Paris - teachers have made fresh protests against pupils wearing headscarves in class.
This prompted Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to say that he was in favour of a ban.
Expulsions
While the Interior Ministry said there was no plan to change the law and Education Minister Luc Ferry said a ban could be unconstitutional, a range of politicians came down firmly in the anti-headscarf camp.
Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande said headscarves were "out of place in schools".
Listen: Sarkozy booed
An MP from President's Chirac's party, Jacques Myard, told La Chaine Info (LCI) TV there was a "big difference between discreetly wearing a cross, a hand of Fatima or Star of David round your neck" and a headscarf which is "incompatible with the neutrality of the school and the French Republic".
A 1994 instruction from the Education Minister says the "ostentatious display of religious allegiance" in state educational institutions should be prevented.
Since then there has been a series of expulsions and readmissions of Muslim girls from schools.
Teachers in the small town of Flers even went on strike when a 12-year-old pupil refused to remove her headscarf.
New law
Not all French Muslims are opposed to the government's line on identity cards and headscarves.
A moderate French Muslim group, the Muslim Co-ordinating Committee, defended Mr Sarkozy saying it was "shocked by the disgraceful behaviour of those who dared to defy the republic".
The rector of the Paris mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, for his part, urged French Muslims to "live with the times" in an interview with France Inter radio.
Hanifa Cherifi, who mediates between schools and families in headscarf disputes, said most Muslim women - whether in France or elsewhere - did not wear the headscarf.
"It's a minority tradition," she told LCI TV.
The row has prompted Education Minister Luc Ferry to pledge to introduce a new law next year that would reassert secular values in state schools.
France has a 1905 law separating church and state, but Mr Ferry said existing legislation was not designed to deal with the increasing ethnic splintering of French society and what he called "the rise of racism and anti-Semitism".
BBC Monitoring , based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/893070/posts
The women who were veiled were permitted to go through passport control without lifting their veils. I asked the passport control officer why the women didn't have to lift their veils and by permitting them to enter without seeing who was under the veil, how did he know who as under the veil? I was told it was because they could not infringe on their religion because men were forbidden to look upon their faces.
"Great," my husband said, "You probably just let in Yasser Arafat!"
In addition, the veiled women continuously pushed their cart into walls because they couldn't see where they were going.
I'm reminded of the women in Florida who refused to have her photo on her driver's licenses. I wonder how many accidents it caused because they couldn't see where they were going? I think the license bureau acquieced, unless someone else has an update.
During a trip to one of the big shopping malls outside of Washington, D.C., one friend spotted a veiled woman wearing men's shoes.
Hummm .....
(I'm afraid this will be posted more than once since I can't figure this thing out! My apologies if it happenes.)
Just ask 'em.
If they defend the practice(s), simply respond, "Fine. Good enough for your culture, good enough for ours. No veils, no Koran, no open observances of Islam whatsoever. To do so will invite arrest and possible deportation. Only difference........we won't torture you."
We are entitled to our own rules and standards. Foreigners are not privileged to impose their rules and standards on us in our own country.
On the other hand, the government cannot prohibit the free exercise (of an establishment of religion), so if wearing the veil is a religious practice, the government can't prohibit the woman from wearing it.
On the other hand, the government ends up not able to take her photo for her license so she does without the license.
Nothing could be simpler than that. Gal wants to walk, she walks, eh! Must be part of Islam or something although there's nothing about veils in the Koran - just discussions of modesty (which meant something quite different at the time since women in Mecca supposedly went bare breasted in the days of the Prophet.)
Maybe it was just a Muslim Lesbian..?
Is Bill clinton Islamic?
Baghdad Bob? Is that you?
Quoting incidents from the holocaust?
Damn!!
I thought that never happened...
There is a lot of difference between forcing someone to wear a star so that they can be persicuted vs forcing someone be like everyone else to keep others from being killed. If they do not want to live in a non-moslem society they are free to return home. The are not free to force their Islamic lifestyle on others in the name of freedom.
Maybe that's the only way they could get their jollies where women are concerned considering the strict laws they must live by separating the two?
If you cannot prove you are married while dining out, you go to jail!
Oh, it's going to be a bumpy ride!
What is little known that the anti-headscarf rule was directed against Christians/Catholics, together with a fierce persecution of Catholic Church by militant secularists in the beginning of XXc France. Read Pope Pius X encyclical from 1907
Headscarfs (not the veils covering face) are Christian custom which was imitated and modified by Muslims (Islam started much later). If you look at old photos from traditional Christian countries (like Poland, Italy, Greece etc) you will see that women cover their heads in public.
French secularists created a vacuum which is being filled by Muslims. The joy and importance of stopping Muslim invasion expressed by legendary epic poem Song of Roland got forgotten. Now secularism became unwitting Trojan horse for another religion.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
Establishment: ... 3. That which is established; as: (a) A form of government, civil or ecclesiastical; especially, a system of religion maintained by the civil power; as, the Episcopal establishment of England. (In other words, an "established" religion is one that has government support, and a special status under the law, for example Islam in Saudi Arabia)
Respecting: 1. To take notice of; to regard with special attention; to regard as worthy of special consideration; hence, to care for; to heed.
On the other hand, the government cannot prohibit the free exercise (of an establishment of religion), so if wearing the veil is a religious practice, the government can't prohibit the woman from wearing it.
Yes they can, if the prohibition is grounded in a legitimate government interest (like not having masked people walking around on the public streets, or having somebody drive in an unsafe manner) and does not unduly pick out any particular religion. If somebody was in a religion that required nudity at all times, they would not be allowed to walk naked in public. And the Rastafarians that consider smoking pot to be a sacrament are out of luck
I fear this poor blighter has just signed his own death warrent.
Exactly. Having a driver's license is not a right, it's a privilege.
Yeah, it was "overturned" after 6 million of them had been murdered and the Germans were defeated. But don't try to teach a Muslim basic history...it is a lost cause.
"Islam is a religion of peace" (and if you disagree with that I am sure there are about a million muslims ready to take your life to show you how wrong you are)
Oh, it's going to be a bumpy ride!
France already lost one war over pastry - to Mexico!
Germany is not quite as far down the road to Islamic assimilation as France is, but they'll eventually encounter similar problems with pretzels (to say nothing of beer and Oktoberfest).
Between that and France's vineyards, pretty much all that those countries hold dear will be directly threatened by the rising tide of Islam. It is *not* compatible with Western culture in the least, but has taken great advantage of the left's fondness for multiculturalism.
The people of "Old Europe" don't seem inclined to resist the Muslims on religious grounds, but perhaps they'll wake up to the secular threat. It's possible, but the window of opportunity to turn this around closes more each day.
Yes, there is a storm coming.
International Terrorist Support Groups Thrive in Belgium and Netherlands
Adriana Stuijt
Monday, Sept. 24, 2001
ROTTERDAM – Top international anti-terrorism experts have identified two of Europe's most legally tolerant regions – namely, the Dutch-language areas around Europe's most important west coast harbors, Antwerp and Rotterdam – as the main breeding ground for Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist groups. Osama bin Laden 's organization even runs shipping companies as fronts from Amsterdam. The British researcher Dr. R. Gunaratna warned that, especially in The Netherlands, because of its total lack of anti-terrorism laws and its very high level of religious, cultural and judicial tolerance, Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist groups are allowed to thrive. They use Amsterdam and Rotterdam as central bases in the West from which they garnish funds, recruit activists from the local Muslim youth cultural groups, and purchase highly sophisticated arms in the world's largest trading hub: Rotterdam harbor.
The Kurdish PKK, the Tamil Tigers and the Philippines' New People's Army all use the liberal Dutch territory, from which they garnish new converts, turn them into activist supporters, launder and raise funds and purchase sophisticated equipment. These Dutch-based groups, especially, also create waves of propaganda material – and, being based in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, also have no difficulty in purchasing any weapons and other high-tech support materials with which to mount terrorist attacks abroad.
A New Form of Terrorism
Another new, disturbing pattern pointing to a new form of terrorism against the civilian population at large has been detected in both harbor towns of Antwerp and Rotterdam: "Muslim cultural organizations" have also turned the streets of Antwerp and Rotterdam into main battlegrounds for Muslim-fundamentalist male criminal youth gangs who deliberately attack, rob and invade ethno-European cultural events and throngs of shoppers in the large shopping districts.
These well-organized attacks are leaving the local Dutch-speaking ethno-Europeans totally vulnerable and defenseless because their governments have no anti-terrorist laws with which to stop such highly aggressive youth groups from forming in the first place.
For instance, about 5.1 percent of Rotterdam's population is of Moroccan origin – yet about 10 percent of all the city's arrested criminal suspects are of Moroccan origin, according to Rotterdam's latest police statistics issued by chief inspector J. Verbeek and Erasmus University.
In the Dutch-speaking region's latest criminal youth gang attack in Belgium, in the suburb of Hasselt in Antwerp on Sept. 24, large groups of Algerian-Moroccan youths, centrally organized by cell phones and armed with batons and insecticide spray, attacked hundreds of local Flemish citizens holding their traditional end-of-summer fair and circus event at Kruger market square.
Many eyewitnesses who described the terror and destruction at the usually jolly and peaceful Flemish circus fair said the Algerian and Moroccan youths targeted especially women and girls as the youth gangs tore into the carnival goers, spraying people's eyes with insecticides and deodorants; spitting at and insulting especially the Flemish; ordering the girls and women to wear headscarves and calling them whores; cursing the men as "Flemish pork-eaters"; spitting on and befouling with urine and soil the carnival's traditional pancake dinners and destroying the antique, highly valuable carousel and circus equipment hired for the Hasselt community carnival.
Flemish old-age pensioners and children alike were forced to flee in fear of being blinded by spray, and were beaten up and kicked. The Flemish carnival goers – all local residents – had to flee from a steady stream of loud, rude verbal abuse from the young Algerians and Moroccans invading their neighborhood. Many witnesses also said the youths chanted popular slogans used by the Muslim-terrorist organization GIA. Some of these events were described in a local Antwerp newspaper.
Carnival goers who tried to remain and finish their traditional pancake meals or who tried to protect the antique circus equipment were physically attacked by kick-boxing youths. The equipment and musical instruments were destroyed during the racist rampage. There were very few police in attendance. The mainstream Belgian news media briefly described the event as a "scuffle" at a local carnival without mentioning the racist overtones.
In Rotterdam, only about 60 miles north of Antwerp, a similar pattern has also been developing over the past year, with widespread reports of assaults by Moroccan-Algerian youth gangs – described by Dutch police as "criminal youth gangs of North African descent"– but who are described by the news media as being highly centrally organized through cell phones.
These gangs target major shopping districts and traditional European cultural and sporting events to rob, terrorize and abuse especially the ethno-Dutch population. During these organized attacks, the youths are also seen to deliberately target ethno-European girls and women, demanding that they start obeying the strict Muslim shari'a laws favored by terrorist regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, which require total subservience to males. Many women shoppers now shun these major shopping districts to avoid such confrontations.
A Sociological Explanation
Dutch sociologists do not link these aggressive criminal North African male youth gangs to any Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist organizations – instead claiming that this first generation of Algerian-Moroccan youths, primarily raised without fathers, were "deculturized" and therefore aimlessly floating into such destructive criminal behavior.
The sociologists, in fact, urged even more government subsidies to these "cultural" groups to try and combat such behavior. By tradition and unlike Christian women, these sociologists point out, Muslim women are never allowed to discipline any of their male children and the cultural groups might be able to better "channel their male energies."
However, there's a much more organized situation going on here than these Dutch sociologists would have us believe. For example, on the night after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, large groups of North African youths congregated in the town squares in Antwerp and also in the town of Ede in The Netherlands. In this town, a huge crowd of Muslim male youths had started to congregate shortly after the attacks and started celebrating what they themselves told the horrified local citizens was their personal "victory against America."
This was too much even for the highly liberal Dutch – Ede citizens called in the local police and demanded the youths' removal. However, the local police station commander lamely excused his lack of inaction by saying that the youths had been "expressing their rights to free speech available to all Dutch citizens" and that he was not allowed to stop the distasteful celebration.
And in a shock survey carried out by Muslim cultural publications the day after the attack, a full 80 percent of the thousands of Dutch Muslims questioned said that they had been in favor of the terrorist attacks.
Besides these clear danger signals from the Muslim community in The Netherlands itself, the Dutch government this week was also warned by the British anti-terrorism expert Gunaratna, of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Science at St. Andrews University in Scotland, to "stop disregarding the international fight against terrorism, and start prohibiting these terrorist support groups by law."
He urged the Dutch government to immediately change its laws and immediately prohibit these support groups. "Your country must change its laws at once if it wants to remain free of terrorism," he said.
Dutch Law and Terrorism
The Netherlands does not have any anti-terrorism laws – and thus openly allowed fundraising and arms purchase exporting by, for instance, terrorist support groups during the anti-apartheid movement's support of the terrorist cells of the African Nationalist Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) before 1994.
Many Dutch citizens – such as the head of the now-defunct "Anti-apartheid movement Netherlands," the journalist Connie Braam – even actively participated in smuggling weapons and bombs into South Africa from Dutch territory and without any intervention from the Dutch government, which even provided government funding for this terrorist support group.
Dutch law itself contributes to the thriving terrorist support-group culture in The Netherlands. It does not allow any actions to be undertaken against support groups of terrorist organizations if it cannot be firmly proven that their fundraising and other physical support led to the terror attacks.
However, the internal security service of The Netherlands (BVD) itself is also not concentrating on probing such Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist activities as much as they are infiltrating right-wing or neo-Nazi groups, as the Dutch government has traditionally viewed such fascism as the prime enemy of peace and prosperity since the Nazi occupation during WWII.
As long as the Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist support groups do not misbehave inside The Netherlands, they can therefore continue to use the Dutch territory from which to garnish economic and material support – including purchasing highly sophisticated weaponry from the local arms industry – even if these directly lead to terrorist attacks outside The Netherlands, as also happened during the terrorist campaign conducted by the ANC and the PAC against the apartheid government in South Africa prior to 1994.
Belgium does have some anti-terrorist legislation also primarily targeting right-wing neo-Nazi groups – but is juristically more lenient toward Muslim-fundamentalist terrorist support groups on Belgian soil.
Other European countries do have better anti-terrorist legislation, with Great Britain having the most stringent laws due to its Northern Ireland troubles.
Terrorist Support Groups
Gunaratna said many of these groups have been active in The Netherlands for many years. "They conduct fundraisers and launder funds in The Netherlands to carry out violent attacks in Asia and the Middle East," he said.
He also noticed such support groups among other Muslim communities not known for terrorist activities, such as the Sikhs, Sri Lankans, and Pakistani and Kurd cultural groups – many of which are even subsidized by the Dutch government.
American expert Yossef Bodansky, author of a book on bin Laden, also confirmed that Amsterdam-based shipping companies operate as front organizations for the Al Qaida organization. This was also confirmed by the French-Arabian newspaper Al Watan Al Arabi.
Dutch internal affairs minister De Vries shrugged a dismayed "So what can I do about it?" reaction when confronted with these warnings from international experts – telling the TV program "Buitenhof" that he actually "could not exclude that subversive activities might be taking place inside such Muslim cultural groups."
And he even warned a few days later after talks with the 25 mayors of the main Dutch cities in charge of the regional police corps that "the Dutch cannot now start waging a cold war against Muslim religious groups."
He also warned Amsterdam's chief justice officer L. de Wit – who had told the news media that he would call in the defense force in case of pro-bin Laden riots in the capital city – that it was "very foolish to speculate in public about possible riots."
He also considered it unnecessary to rush to protect and beef up the security for all the public buildings and public figures against terrorist attacks. "There is no concrete terrorist threat in The Netherlands," he concluded and advised that only "some public buildings" had had their security stepped up. Al Watan
Meanwhile, Rotterdam's mayor, Mr. I. Opstelten, said the four men arrested in his city last week as suspects connected to the terrorist attacks on America still have not provided any leads that could link them. One is in a routine holding facility for illegal aliens and the other three are in police custody pending the investigation, he said.
The Dutch internal security organization, the BVD, has managed to confiscate a "suspicious parcel" destined for the United States, which was posted in the Swartjan street post office in Rotterdam. The country's anti-terrorist expert P. van der Molen said the main suspect of this Muslim support group, a Tunisian citizen, is still in custody in Brussels, Belgium.
Some anti-Muslim reactions were also recorded in The Netherlands since the Sept. 11 infamy. About 25 incidents were recorded by Dutch police, including arson, graffiti, and threats against mosques and Islamic schools in the towns of Vlissingen, Uden, Zwolle, Heerlen, The Hague and Rijssen. Two Islamic schools were torched, one in Nijmegen and the other in Drachten.
The Dutch cabinet minister in charge of "integration management," Mr. Van Boxtel, said this "unacceptable behavior against our young new Dutch citizens, this mini-terrorism, will be punished with the full force of Dutch law."
And here's an article on immigrants in other EU countries:
Yes, well said. It was brilliant of President Bush to recognizing the daily closing of the window and to take action while there was still time. Those who rejected his leadership and his advice will regret it.
I remember that article from the first time it appeared; in fact, I printed a copy of it and still have it stashed in my office desk.
Here's the most repugnant part of all: Even if the Dutch were to awaken tomorrow and see those "immigrants" as the equivalent of the Nazi invaders of the 1940s, they would find it very difficult to deal with the problem. If they took action to forcibly remove the troublemakers, the U.N. would move to stop them from doing so. "Ethnic cleansing", you know. Can't have that.
The U.N. is not going to lead Europe out of this mess, and neither is the E.U. - they'll only make things worse by making sure that ALL of Europe is a playground for Muslims.
Have you read The Eurabian Alliance ? It shows that this is an intentional plan : No paranoid Conspiracy Theory ; this is the Real Thing. The link to read the rest of the article is no longer connected to the story at the original site, but it does link to the current article from the author. The EA article is only the second article in the archives listed at the bottom of that page.
This law would prohibit the government from removing the woman's veil. If you haven't taken a look lately prohibiting masked folks from the public streets is no longer an issue.
I agree with you . They leave their countries to immigrate and start over and they should conform or leave
bravo!!!! I think they should lift their veils! if men can not see them have a woman do it
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