The West in general and the European Union in particular take pride in their liberalism, freedom of expression and dress yet when it comes to Muslims, especially Muslim women, all such freedoms evaporate.
Intolerance and hatred of the ‘other’ is part of the DNA of Europe but such racism and xenophobia could lead to the disintegration of Europe itself.
Since it agreed to start accession talks with Turkey in October, the European Union has been highly critical of Turkey's human-rights record, including its treatment of the Kurds, who are concentrated in the south east of the country.
Tens of thousands of French Muslims took to the streets of Paris, Marseilles, Lille and other French towns and cities on January 17 to express their anger at the government’s proposal to ban hijab from public schools...
A ban on French Muslimahs wearing hijab in public schools seems inevitable after president Jacques Chirac voiced support for the findings of a government commission recommending that "visible religious symbols" be banned as inconsistent with the French state’s secular ethos...
The suspension of two Muslim schoolgirls from their schools earlier this month in Singapore has brought into the limelight the republic’s little-known Muslim community.
Sister Safa Merve Kavakci’s hijab battle dominated the political debate in Turkey about the functioning of democratic norms and secularism until it was buried by the August earthquake. While the secular Kemalist government got egg on its face for its poor handling of the rescue efforts, the hijab issue is still being debated.
Merve Kavakci, elected to Turkish parliament from Istanbul as a Fazilat (Virtue) Party candidate in the April 18 election, appears at first sight quite unassuming, even a little shy. But beneath that gentle exterior is a young Muslimah of steely nerves.
To their eternal shame, Kemalists in Turkey continue to expose themselves as a morally bankrupt bunch. They ban Muslim girls and women who wear the hijab from attending school or university but insist that adultery is permissible.
The banning of Refah, Turkey’s ‘Islamic’ political party, was formalized on February 22, when the Constitutional Court’s full verdict was published.
