Free Republic

An Illinois woman is charged with a hate crime for berating a Muslim woman about the Fort Hood shooting and then pulling at her headscarf. The charge could lead to three years in prison: justice or prosecutorial overkill? In the days after the Ft. Hood shooting, mosques around the country bolstered their security in anticipation of a backlash from Americans angry about a Muslim man alleged to have killed American soldiers on their own turf. Since then, only one alleged hate crime against Muslims has been directly tied to the Fort Hood rampage. Two days after the rampage by an...

All over the Western world, the Muslim headscarf for women is being used as a non-violent, stick-it-in your face form of "jihad". As a spokesman for the Norwegian Progress Party has stated, "...it's all a part of the sneak-islamization." Rifqa Bary was punched by her devout Muslim father, because she didn't like the "hijab." From Fox: "A Muslim doctor interviewing for a job at a suburban Dallas medical clinic says officials there told her she couldn't wear her headscarf while working. " "Dr. Hena Zaki of Plano said Friday that she was shocked when CareNow officials told her in person...

NEW ISLAMIC RULING IN IRAN FAREWELL FEMINISM bythelastcrusade.org Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared in a hijab to acknowledge her respect for Islamic law, while visiting Lebanon and Syria. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi followed suit. Even Laura Bush popped up wearing the head covering while signifies a female’s subservience and submission to male authority. Such woman should think again of gaining political recognition and respect in countries where Shiite Muslims hold sway.One of the leading Iranian cleric said today that "Allah's fury" will be unleashed if Iran appoints women as governors or representatives of some provinces, as...

The Council on American Islamic Relations is at it again. Once again they are trying to get companies across the country to fall in line and cater to Islam. If things do not change, Islam will eventually win by taking over from within.

SPRING HILL, FL -- While showing off her JROTC uniform, 16-year-old Heather Lawrence told us joining the Army is her next big goal, to follow in the footsteps of her father and grandfather. "Our flag represents everything that our country is," she said. The teen says an issue over the American flag is why she was written up and handed a five-day suspension from Springstead High School this week for criticizing a Muslim student. Heather says the other girl was sitting down during the Pledge of Allegiance. "You know, I made a not-so-kind remark, and I do sincerely apologize for...

Maybe it's because her dad served in the U.S. Marines ... or because her high school mascot is a fierce-looking eagle ... or because she plans to enlist in the Army next summer after graduation to defend her country ... whatever the reason, when Heather Lawrence saw a fellow student refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and recite it with the class, the 16-year-old Junior ROTC member saw a teachable moment and took it. And for that, she's been suspended five days. Lawrence's troubles with administrators at Springstead High School in Hernando Beach, Fla., began last Wednesday when...

Heather Lawrence didn't know the name of the girl with the Muslim head covering, or where she was from. But as Lawrence walked by a classroom at Springstead High School on Wednesday, the 16-year-old junior did know one thing: The girl wasn't standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Lawrence, an JROTC member who plans to enlist in the Army next summer, says she was aghast. "That's one of the most disrespectful things you can do," Lawrence recalled Friday. "Even the kids who are anarchists, who hate our government, still have respect to stand." A few bells later, Lawrence was on...

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (AP) - A Muslim woman on Wednesday sued a Michigan judge for telling her to remove her headscarf in his courtroom, claiming he violated her First Amendment right to practice her religion. Raneen Albaghdady, 32, says she felt humiliated when Wayne County Circuit Judge William Callahan ordered her to remove her hijab at a June 16 hearing in his Detroit courtroom. "This is the country and the land of freedom, and we're not supposed to be treated like this for the scarf," the Dearborn Heights woman said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon at the Southfield headquarters of...

The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) is scheduled to hold a news conference Wednesday to announce the filing of a federal lawsuit against Wayne County Circuit Judge William Callahan. The Muslim plaintiff says she felt so intimidated by the judge’s repeated demand that she eventually removed her headscarf.

British leaders must stay up at night thinking of new ways that they can cater to Islam. Just the other day I posted that Muslims in the UK might get their own police division. Now non-Muslim female officers in two UK counties will be forced to wear headscarves upon entering a Mosque. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Okay, stumbled upon this via the interesting Tehran thread at Skyscrapercity.com . Purportedly from June 17 in Tehran a woman steps into traffic without mandatory hijab and with an rather un-islamic dress. The folks in the car filming repeatedly ask whether Revolution has broken out. LOL. This took guts. Hope they don't find her. Video at Youtube

The bravest 13 year old girl in the world. Directed by Khadija Al-Salami. Yemen. 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAkPFZQA6EM

CAIRO // Afaf al Sayed spent 10 years feeling like she was staring at life from inside a coffin. That is how she remembers the period between 1983 and 1992, when she wore a niqab, a variation on the Islamic veil worn by women that shrouds the entire face save for the eyes. “There are small details that are still painful when I think about them after all those years,” said Ms al Sayed, 45, who is now the head of Heya, a feminist women’s organisation. “I think during these years, I stopped looking at myself in the mirror, until...

Police have opened the door to female Muslim recruits by incorporating the hijab into the uniform. The force has become the latest to approve a design for a headscarf suitable for officers on patrol. Senior officers believe the lack of the option has deterred applications from the considerable number of Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab. The police hijab is plain black and made of a flame-retardant material. Officers will be able to wear a standard police hat on top of it. Click here! A small number of forces nationwide have taken a similar step, including Thames Valley...

A MURDERING Al Qaeda terrorist has sparked outrage after threatening legal action under the Human Rights Act unless women prison wardens in his presence wear veils. Kamel Bourgass, 33, was jailed for life in 2004 after stabbing brave Special Branch officer Stephen Oake to death in a police raid. Now Bourgass is not only recruiting extremists to his twisted cause in Wakefield prison but is claiming that women wardens without veils infringe his human rights. He has even cracked sick jokes about the bravery medal DC Oake received posthumously, sneering that it was made from the “metal of my knife”....

As a Georgia Muslim woman tried to enter a courtroom, a bailiff told her that she would have to remove her hijab if she wanted to come in. Instead of complying she cursed the bailiff. As a result she was sentenced to 10 days in jail for contempt of court. Apparently it is OK when they tell us how to live, but no one can ask anything of them.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a series of incidents in which Muslim women in Georgia were prevented from entering courtrooms because they were wearing Islamic headscarves, or hijabs. In the most recent incident, a Muslim woman was jailed today following a dispute over whether she could enter the courtroom while wearing her hijab.According to the woman’s husband, she was seeking to enter the courtroom in Douglasville, Ga., to deal with a matter related to a nephew’s traffic citation. After she walked through the security area, a bailiff allegedly told...

Todays politically correct move in the UK is telling Christmas charity workers not to shake their rattles out of fear of offending other religions. How long will it be until the politically correct there call for a complete ban of Christmas? Because it seems that is the direction that they are heading in.

As the fountainhead of global Islamic terrorism, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has long had a public-relations problem. For years the Brotherhood has struggled to veil its reputation as a violent and reactionary religious movement without moderating the substance of its politics, which continue to include support for terror attacks and the institution of hard-line Sharia law. At the University of California at Irvine (UCI), the Brotherhood has now found an audience receptive to its efforts.

The parents of 7-year-old Maryam are sending her to a school run by the Iranian Embassy in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. She attends the Iranian school because, like many other Tajik girls who wear Islamic head scarves, Maryam wasn't allowed to enter her Tajik school when it opened last week. "I went to school on September 1, but [the teachers] didn't let me in," she says. "They told me to remove my head scarf. I didn't go to school anymore." Tajikistan's Education Ministry outlawed the hijab in schools and universities last year and also demands that its students wear special...

CAIRO -- In a Muslim country where the numbers of women wearing the veil are rising, and so -- by most accounts -- are incidents of groping and catcalls in the streets, the message in ads circulating anonymously in e-mails here in Egypt is clear: "A veil to protect, or eyes will molest," one warns. The words sit over two illustrations, one comparing a veiled woman, her hair and neck covered in the manner known to Muslims as hijab, to a wrapped candy, untouched and pure. The other picture shows an unveiled woman, hair flying wildly and hip jutting, next...

Shereen Sabet, a Southern California woman has designed a line of swimsuits for Muslim women, who adhere to a modest dress code.

A Muslim woman is claiming she was denied employment at an American clothing store because she wears a religious headscarf, or hijab, and she wants an apology. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against an Oklahoma Abercrombie Kids store claiming a district manager told her the hijab "does not fit the Abercrombie image." "Employers have a clear legal duty to accommodate the religious practices of their workers," executive director Razi Hashmi said. "To deny someone employment because of apparent religious bias goes against long-standing American traditions of tolerance and inclusion." Hashmi said...

A French court’s decision last month not to grant French citizenship to a burqa-clad Muslim woman provided a ray of hope to those willing to stand up for western values and oppose Islamization of their societies. But you would never know it according to the New York Times. While the media focus was on the head-to-toe, body-encompassing robe that leaves only a slit for the eyes, the part of the ruling stating the Moroccan citizen had adopted as her religious practice a very dangerous strain of Islamic fundamentalism was mostly ignored. Previously, citizenship had been denied to those involved with...

Police in Toronto, Canada concluded that the 16-year-old-Pakistani girl Aqsa Parvez, was murdered by her father... and her brother, for refusing to wear the hijab or veil as is the custom for women in traditional Muslim households. "Instead of getting angry at the father and brother who are accused of planning the murder by luring the runaway teenager back to her home, leaders of the conservative and orthodox Muslim community made excuses." we found few other Muslim leaders willing to slam the father, mother, sister and brother, who either joined hands in killing the young girl, or sat passively as...

Presidential contender Senator Obama moved quickly to reassure his Muslim supporters that the apparent discrimination that occurred at two of his speeches in Michigan “was merely cosmetic and should not be taken as a sign that I do not appreciate the value of their support.” The charges of discrimination were leveled by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) after Obama campaign workers barred two Muslim women from sitting behind the podium because they did not want the women's headscarves to be seen in photographs or on television. The women were reportedly told they couldn’t sit behind the podium unless they removed...

Austin Hill, host of 630 WMAL's "The Evening Show" in Washington, DC will discuss this issue -- completely ignored by the MSM -- tonight during the show, which runs from 8:00 - 10:00 p.m. ET http://www.630wmal.com/article.asp?id=632848 Listen Live! Don't Miss It! Call Austin during the show at 888 630 9625

- Top Islamic Proselytizer As soon as I heard about the Muslim women in hijabs being excluded from sitting behind Barack Obama at a Michigan rally, I knew what you probably knew: that CAIR and ADC and MPAC and ISNA, the alphabet soup of terrorist-sympathizing, pan-HAMAS/Hezbollah Islamofascist grievance theater, would milk the story like there's no tomorrow. It was ripe fodder for their PR branch of the jihad against America and the West. Now, I've come to learn that one of the hijab-encrusted, rejected whiners, Hebba Aref, was an official of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), in charge of proselytizing....

Two Muslim women at Barack Obama's rally in Detroit Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women's headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate. The campaign has apologized to the women, all Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally. "This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama's commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton, who added that the volunteers were acting...

When I came to this country, I took off my hijab. It wasn't an easy decision. I worried at night that God would punish me for it. That's what I had been taught would happen, and it filled me with fear. I was 27, coming from my home country of Iraq to study in California. I hoped that by taking off the hijab I had been wearing for eight years, I would be able to maintain a low profile. In Baghdad, you keep a low profile to stay alive. But in the United States, I merely wanted not to be...

Cambridge University has been given £8 million by a Saudi Arabian prince to establish an Islamic studies centre. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, ranked in the top 20 richest men in the world, with a fortune of about £10 billion, has donated the cash to the university to fund a centre in his name for the study of the role of Islam in the Middle East and globally. The gift has been recommended by the university's general board and is expected to be announced in June. advertisement The grandson of King Ibn Saud and nephew of King Abudllah, the prince counts...

A national American-Islamic group is calling on local, state and national law enforcement authorities to investigate an alleged incident in which a Muslim woman was ejected from the Oakwood mall near Gretna for refusing a security guard's demand to remove her headscarf, known as a hijab.

Turkish lawmakers have overwhelmingly approved two constitutional amendments lifting a ban on Islamic head scarves at universities, despite a mass rally protesting the move. The government has argued that the changes are a women's rights issue, while opponents have said they are indicative of the Islamization of Turkish society. The final vote on the constitutional reform package received 411 "yes" votes in the 550-seat parliament. The two proposed amendments needed a two-thirds majority, or 367 votes, to pass. Constitutional Issue The package amends the constitution to read that everyone has the right to equal treatment from state institutions such as...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch government is set to impose a ban on the Muslim burqa in schools and government offices, media reported on Wednesday, in a retreat from the previous cabinet's plan for a general ban. The cabinet has decided against a broad ban on burqas in public as that would violate the principle of freedom of religion, news agency ANP said, citing unnamed cabinet sources. The Muslim community says only about 50 women wear the head-to-toe burqa or the niqab, a face veil that conceals everything but the eyes. They said a general ban would heighten alienation among...

Tajikistan's education minister has extended official strictures on personal and religious freedoms with an assault on deeply ingrained practices at one of the country's major institutions of Islamic learning. Less than a year after he effectively eliminated Islamic-style head scarves in public schools, Abdujabbor Rahmonov has ordered male students at the Islamic University of Tajikistan to don suits and ties and shave their beards, and he has vowed to introduce teacher uniforms there and ban head scarves, known as hijabs. It is the latest indication of the balancing act confronting Tajik officials who are outwardly keen to discourage unsanctioned religious...

Friends and classmates of a 16-year-old girl who police say was murdered by her devout Muslim father in a Toronto suburb told local media Tuesday she was killed for not wearing a hijab. Police said in a statement they received an emergency call at 7:55 am local time Monday from "a man who indicated that he had just killed his daughter." The victim, Aqsa Parvez, was "rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries, but tragically passed away late last night." Her father, Muhammad Parvez, 57, was arrested at the scene and will be formally charged with murder when he appears in...

Little girls in the militancy-hit Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan hate a diktat issued by pro-Taliban rebels to attend school in burqas. Burqas are the only option some girls' schools in northwestern Pakistan have against being shut down or worse, being bombed. "I want to study, but not in a burqa," said Shah Rukh, a 12-year-old girl enrolled at a primary school at Saidu Sharif in Swat. Shah Rukh is just one of many girls who have learnt to speak out against the burqa diktat in the picturesque Valley. "My 11-year-old daughter cries every morning when she has to wear...

TORONTO, Ont. -- A 16-year-old girl has died after allegedly being choked by her father over a dispute with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by some Muslim women. Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man Tuesday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter, according to a Toronto newspaper Web site. According to the National Post, a Toronto newspaper Web site, when police arrived at the house they found the teen on the floor without any vital signs.

Muslim woman sues for being forced to remove headscarf in US jail The Associated Press Published: December 6, 2007 LOS ANGELES: A Muslim woman arrested for riding a commuter train without a valid ticket has filed a federal lawsuit in the United States, claiming her religious freedom was violated when she was forced to remove her headscarf when she was taken to jail. Jameelah Medina also said she was intimidated by a deputy who accused her of being a terrorist and called Islam an "evil" religion, according to the suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by the American Civil...

DUESSELDORF, Germany — A court in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, has ruled that a compromise head cover used by a Muslim teacher still violates the hijab ban, Deutsche Welle reported on Wednesday, August 15. Maryam Brigitte Weiss, a state school teacher since 1980, had asked a court in the northwestern city of Duesseldorf to allow her to wear a headscarf tied in a loose knot at the base of the neck, leaving the hair showing at the front. The woman, who embraced Islam in the early 1990s, had argued that such a head cover was a "fashion accessory"...

Once-exotic forms of Muslim women's head and body garments have now become both familiar in the West and the source of fractious political and legal disputes. The hijab (a hair-covering) is ever-more popular in Detroit but has been banned from French public schools, discouraged by the International Football Association Board, and excluded from a court in the US state of Georgia. The jilbab (a garment that leaves only the face and hands exposed) was, in a case partly argued by Tony Blair's wife, first allowed, then forbidden in an English school. The niqab (a total covering except for the eyes)...

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates-- The West believes that Islam oppresses women. But as a Muslim, descended from generations of Muslims, I have a different story to tell. It starts like this: You say, "The sea is salty." I say, "But it is blue and full of fish." I am not objective about Islam, and although I am considerably Westernized, I can never truly see it through Western eyes. I am in this religion. It is in me. And articulating the intimacy of faith and the experience of worship to a Western audience is a challenge and a discovery... Recently,...

Hijabs a source of illness, doctors say Doctors have claimed that Muslim women wearing the hijab could be at risk of serious illness because they do not get enough sun. It has been claimed that women who cover their skin are could be suffering bone deficiencies over a lack of vitamin D. Most of the body’s vitamin D - which prevents rickets - is obtained through sunlight acting on the skin. Only a little comes from food. Doctors told a London conference on Wednesday that people with dark pigment oare at risk because of "cultural reasons" and because they are...

Two Muslim women had the right to continue wearing their head scarves when sitting for a driver's license photo, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles said. Clerks at separate bureau offices in southwest Ohio were wrong to insist that the women remove the scarves, also known as hijabs, which are expressions of faith and modesty, said Tom Hunter, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the motor vehicles bureau. The bureau's offices in Loveland and Mason retook the photos for free. “It was just a misunderstanding on the part of BMV employees as to what the policy was,”...

LONDON: Increasingly, Muslim women in Britain take their children to school and run errands covered head to toe in flowing black gowns that allow only a slit for their eyes. Like little else, their appearance has unnerved Britons, testing the limits of tolerance in this stridently secular nation. Many veiled women say they are targets of abuse. At the same time, efforts are growing to place legal curbs on the full Muslim veil, known as the niqab. The past year has seen numerous examples: A lawyer dressed in a niqab was told by an immigration judge that she could not...

Forcing Maids to Wear Veil Najah Alosaimi, Arab News RIYADH, 3 June 2007 — The scene of a veiled maid walking with a Saudi family in public is a familiar one. It is also a normal scene when we consider how the veil and religion are closely associated with most Saudis. Veils constitute an important component of dress for many women in the Kingdom, where it is considered a sign of feminine modesty. Interestingly, non-Muslim maids that work for conservative Muslim families are also obliged by their sponsors to wear veils in public. However, these women are not required to...

Manal Fageeh never liked the abaya, the long black cloak she was forced to begin wearing at 13. She resented the fact that it was obligatory for women in Saudi Arabia, and the black absorbed heat in the often-scorching climate. Saudi women have long been known in the West for their all-enveloping black attire, widely considered a mark of their oppression. But Sharif and Fageeh are among a growing number of women and girls here who are rethinking and reinventing the abaya to more closely reflect their personalities and religious beliefs. The redefinition of the abaya mirrors the greater, though...

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali security forces are seizing and even burning Muslim women's veils in Mogadishu to stop Islamist insurgents disguising themselves for attacks, authorities and witnesses said on Wednesday. The Western-backed government's crackdown on veils is a highly symbolic turnaround for the Somali capital. When it was under Islamist control in the second half of 2006, women were instructed to cover their heads.

Saudi Women, Oppressed by Husbands, Turn to Stripping in Internet Chat Rooms in Search of "Admiration" Following are excerpts from a TV report on Saudi women and web cams, which aired on LBC TV on April 18, 2007: Reporter: Behind closed doors and far from any supervising eyes, they remove their shame and turn their backs on all customs and traditions. Girls display their bodies in chat rooms on the Internet, in most cases, free of charge. As soon as one of these girls places the camera in front of her, she begins to strip, displaying her seductive charms to...

Aniya Arrested Over Article “Against Islam” By Will Jordan in Male' May 3, 2007 Aishath Aniya was arrested on Thursday morning in connection with an article she wrote criticising the wearing of the veil. She was apprehended by police at around 9:40am outside the offices of Minivan Daily newspaper as she parked her motorcycle. Aniya was lifted into the back of a police van and taken to Police Headquarters, before being transferred to the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs for questioning. She refused to answer questions without a lawyer present and arranged to return to the Supreme Council on Sunday...