French Police Cautious Over Enforcing Burqa Ban Over Fears Of Extremist Violence

From The Telegraph and ADF:


Burka: French police cautious over enforcing ban over fears of extremist violence



Police in France have admitted they will be enforcing the country’s new burka ban "extremely cautiously" because of fears of provoking violence.





A woman wearing a burka in Paris, France before the ban: Police received a guide last week to help implement the ban Photo: EPA







By Peter Allen, in Paris9:40AM BST 11 Apr 2011









They fear Muslims extremists will use the law to provoke fights with officers, while rich visitors from countries like Saudi Arabia will also cause trouble .





All garments which cover the face were officially banned from first thing this morning, with offenders facing fines of 150 euros (£133).





But police admitted that they feared being accused of discrimination against Muslims, whether approaching women in tinderbox housing projects or on the Champs Elysee.





"The law will be very difficult to apply on certain estates," said Patrice Ribeiro, of the Synergie police union.





Referring to two Paris suburbs where riots regularly break out because of alleged discrimination against Muslims, Mr Ribeiro said: "I can’t see police going to book dozens of veiled women doing their shopping in Venissieux or in Trappes.





"It will be the same when a police officer is about to arrest a veiled Saudi who is about to go into Louis Vuitton on the Champs Elysees. In all cases, the forces of order will have to be measured and cautious in their behaviour."



Synergie has already instructed its members to view the ban as a "low priority", and Mr Ribeiro said there would "inevitably be incidents".



Mohamed Douhane, another Paris police officer and Synergie member, said he and his colleagues also "expected provocation by a minority."



Mr Douhane added: "Fundamentalist movements are eager to raise the stakes. The police know they will be held responsible for any public order disturbances."



Police have already been warned not to arrest women "in or around" mosques, and "citizen’s de-veilings" are also banned.



The strict instructions, from Interior Minister Claude Guent, are contained in a nine page circular issued to officers.



With tensions running high within the country’s six million strong Muslim community, officers have been told to look out for members of the public taking the law into their own hands.



Instead they will have to call the police, who will in turn have four hours to consider whether an offender should be fined.



This will apply to all garments which cover the eyes, although scarfs, hats, and sunglasses are excluded.



As well as a mosque, Muslims will also be able to put on a veil in the privacy of their own homes, a hotel room, or even a car, as long as they are not driving.



Police have already complained that they will have to waste time on "burka-chasing", with Denis Jacob, of the Alliance police union, adding: "We have more important matters to be dealing with."



The ban means France is officially the second country in Europe, after Belgium, to introduce a full ban on a garment which immigration minister Eric Besson has called a "walking coffin".



While French women face the fines and ‘civic duty’ guidance if they break the law, men who force their wives or daughters to wear burkas will face up to a year in prison, and fines of up to 25,000 pounds.



Posters have already gone up in town halls across France reading: "The Republic lives with its face uncovered."



Belgium introduced a full ban last year, although it has not been enforced with any vigour. A ban also looks likely in Holland, Spain and Switzerland.



There are no plans to introduce a similar ban in Britain, although politicians from the UK Independence Party and some Tory backbenchers have suggested one.

Laws On Muslim Veils And Head-Scarves In Different Countries

From The Washington Post and ADF:

Laws on Muslim veils and headscarves in different countries





By Associated Press, Monday, April 11, 12:50 PM







Here is a look at legislation and debate about face-covering Muslim veils and Muslim headscarves in various countries:







1





Comments



Weigh In

Corrections?



















— FRANCE: France on Monday became the first country to enact a law designed to forbid face-covering veils such as the niqab or burqa anywhere in public. Violators risk fines or citizenship classes. A 2004 law bans Muslim headscarves and other “ostentatious” religious symbols from classrooms.



— BELGIUM: The parliament passed a measure banning veils in 2010 but it has languished since the country has struggled to form a new government for the past several months. The mayor of Maaseik banned face-covering veils in 2004.



— BRITAIN: The issue of full-body veils has largely faded from the spotlight since then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair called it a “mark of separation” in 2006. The coverings are more visible on the streets of London than many other European cities.



— ITALY: Has a law requiring people to keep their faces visible in public, dating to Italy’s crackdown on domestic terrorism decades ago. Representatives of Italy’s Muslim community say it’s rarely applied in the case of women wearing veils.









— NETHERLANDS: The coalition government installed last year said it is aiming to ban the burqa, but has yet to present any concrete plans or draft legislation. A previous administration considered but abandoned legislation in 2006 for a total ban on Muslim veils, after lawyers said it would likely be unconstitutional.



— UNITED STATES: There are currently no laws banning veils or headscarves in the U.S. There is a move in some states to ban Sharia law, though these attempts have not succeeded so far. The sponsor of such a bill in Oklahoma wanted to prohibit women from wearing headscarves in driver’s license photos. Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in 2010 banned veils that obscure the face for security reasons, but later changed it to accommodate Muslim women.



— TURKEY: Islamic-style headscarves and full robes are banned in schools and in government offices. A similar ban for university students was recently relaxed.



— EGYPT: Egypt allows some institutions to pass partial bans on wearing the face veil where necessary, like in the armed forces. Universities have attempted to impose rules that ban women wearing the face veil during exams — a notch up from a widely accepted procedure that demands women wearing the face veil reveal their face to a female official to confirm their identity before beginning exams. At least one institution, Cairo University, has banned one woman from teaching students while wearing a face veil.



— TUNISIA: Headscarves and full veils are banned from public buildings and schools. After the longtime president was ousted in a popular revolt this year, some Islamist protesters have demanded that the rules be relaxed.



— SYRIA: Syrian President Bashar Assad last week reversed a decision that bans teachers from wearing the niqab, the full Islamic veil that reveals only a woman’s eyes. The move is seen an attempt to appease religious conservatives in the Sunni majority as Assad faces down a popular uprising challenging his authoritarian rule. The government had banned the veil in July 2010.



— GERMANY: Several states in the country, which has a large Muslim immigrant community, have banned teachers from wearing headscarves in public schools. The state of Hesse decided in February to bar public employees from wearing face-covering burqas at work.



— SWITZERLAND: Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said in 2009 the government could “study a possible ban” of face-covering veils if more Muslim women begin wearing them. She said they make her feel “uncomfortable.”



— SPAIN: Several Spanish towns have begun processes to prohibit the use of face-covering Islamic veils in municipal buildings but not in the street. There have been a handful of incidents involving schoolgirls wearing headscarves but they are not banned under any legislation.



— AUSTRIA: There are no laws banning headscarves but Muslim community officials say women are at a disadvantage professionally if they choose to wear one. The far-right Freedom Party has slammed headscarves and face-covering veils saying they “promote the oppression of women” and last summer called for a referendum on the issue.



Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Two Arrested As France Bans Face-Covering Islamic Veil

From The Toronto Star and ADF:

2 arrested as France bans face-covering Islamic veil




Published On Mon Apr 11 2011Email





Kenza Drider talks to the media during a demonstration against the ban of the niqab or full-face veil in public places, outside Notre-Dame cathedral on April 11, 2011 in Paris.

Pascal Le Segretain/GETTY IMAGES





CAMILLE RUSTICIAssociated Press







PARIS—France put into motion Monday the world's first ban on Islamic face veils, meaning that women may bare their breasts in Cannes but not cover their faces on the Champs-Elysées.



Two veiled women were hauled off from a Paris protest just hours after the ban came into effect. Their unauthorized demonstration, on the cobblestone square facing Notre Dame Cathedral, was rich with both the symbolism of France's modern spirit of defiance and its medieval history.



While some see encroaching Islamophobia in the new ban, President Nicolas Sarkozy's government defended it as a rampart protecting France's identity against inequality and extremism. Police grumbled that it will be hard to enforce.



“The law is very clear. Hiding your face in public places is cause for imposing sanctions,” Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Monday at an EU meeting in Luxembourg. He said it defends “two fundamental principles: the principle of secularism and the principle of equality between man and woman.”



The law affects barely 2,000 women who cloak themselves in the niqab, which has just a slit for the eyes, and the burqa, which has a mesh screen over the eyes, and it enjoyed widespread public support when it was passed last year. But it has worried French allies, prompted protests abroad and has come to epitomize France's struggle to integrate Muslim immigrants in recent generations.



This is a traditionally Catholic country where church and state were formally separated more than a century ago, when Muslims were barely a presence. Today, France sees itself as a proudly secular nation, few Catholics attend church regularly and small-town churches are crumbling — while growing demand for prayer rooms means Muslims pray on French city sidewalks and streets.



Though only a very small minority of France's at least 5 million Muslims wear the veil, many Muslims see the ban as a stigma against the country's No. 2 religion. Many have also felt stigmatized by a 2004 law that banned Islamic head scarves in classrooms.



About a dozen people, including three women wearing niqab veils, staged a protest in front of Notre Dame on Monday, saying the ban is an affront to their freedom of expression and religion. Much larger crowds of police, journalists and tourists filled the square.



Two of the veiled women were taken away by police for taking part in an unauthorized demonstration, Paris police authority said. They were released later Monday after questioning. Amnesty International condemned the detention of the two women and others at the protest.



It was unclear whether the women were also fined for wearing a veil.



The law says veiled women risk a €150 ($215) fine or special citizenship classes, though not jail. People who force women to don a veil are subject to up to a year in prison and a €30,000 fine ($43,000), and possibly twice that if the veiled person is a minor. The ban affects women who wear the niqab and the burqa.



The law is worded to skate safely through legal minefields: The words “women,” ''Muslim” and “veil” are not even mentioned. The law says it is illegal to hide the face in the public space, but makes exceptions to allow for motorcycle helmets, traditional ceremonies such as weddings or Carnival costumes.



While Italy also has a law against concealing the face for security reasons, France's law was the first conceived to target veil-wearers. Sarkozy said he wanted a ban, and that the veils are not welcome in France.



Moderate Muslim leaders in France and elsewhere agree that Islam does not require women to cover their faces, but many are uncomfortable with banning the veil.



The plans for a ban prompted protests in Pakistan last year and warnings from Al Qaeda. It also has devout Muslim tourists skittish, since it applies to visitors as well as French citizens.



Kenza Drider, who lives in Avignon and wears a niqab, calls the ban racist. Right before the ban came into effect, she said she would continue to go “shopping, to the post office and to city hall if necessary. I will under no circumstance stop wearing my veil.”



“If I am warned verbally and must appear before the local prosecutor.... I will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights,” she told AP Television News in Avignon.



The veil, for her, “is a submission to God,” Drider said.



Police complained that the law will be a challenge to enforce.



“The law will be infinitely difficult to apply, and it will be infinitely rarely applied, unfortunately,” Emmanuel Roux of the police union SCPN said on France-Inter radio.



He said police have been instructed not to use force to remove the veils, and that if a woman refuses to remove it, the police officer is meant to call the prosecutor for further legal action. Only in very extreme cases, he said, would a woman be jailed for refusal to remove a veil.



The ban had strong support from France's leading parties on left and right.



“It's not a racist law. It's just a law that is coming from the history of France and so you need to accept it if you want to integrate into France and with French people,” insisted Laurent Berrebe, an economist walking in central Paris on Monday.



Nurse Olfa Belmanaa is opposed. “We are in France, we are in a democratic country where everyone has the right to do what they want. If they want to wear a veil or go completely nude that's their right.”

Muslim Population In Western Europe Rising

From International Business Times and ADF:

Malaysia, in reversal, will allow Bible imported without 'warning label'




April 11, 2011



The government of Malaysia has announced plans to allow the importation of Bibles, without the warning label that had been required under an earlier announced policy.



Christians in Malaysia had refused to accept Bibles that carried the government-mandated label warning that the book should be read only by Christians. The government has backed off that policy, with an apology to Christians. The new policy requires only that the Bibles have a cross on the cover and are marked “Christian publication.”



The government's earlier restrictions had been designed to prevent proselytization of the country's predominantly Muslim population.





Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

•Kuala Lumpur authorizes importation and printing of the Bible in any language (AsiaNews)

•Malaysian Christians reject government demands for warning label on Bibles (CWN, 3/18)

Malaysia, In Reversal, Will Allow Bible Imported Without "Warning Label"

From Catholic Culture.org and ADF:

Malaysia, in reversal, will allow Bible imported without 'warning label'




April 11, 2011



The government of Malaysia has announced plans to allow the importation of Bibles, without the warning label that had been required under an earlier announced policy.



Christians in Malaysia had refused to accept Bibles that carried the government-mandated label warning that the book should be read only by Christians. The government has backed off that policy, with an apology to Christians. The new policy requires only that the Bibles have a cross on the cover and are marked “Christian publication.”



The government's earlier restrictions had been designed to prevent proselytization of the country's predominantly Muslim population.





Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

•Kuala Lumpur authorizes importation and printing of the Bible in any language (AsiaNews)

•Malaysian Christians reject government demands for warning label on Bibles (CWN, 3/18)

The Muslim World's Coming European Revolution

From Real Clear Religion:

April 4, 2011


The Muslim World's Coming European Revolution

By Philip Jenkins





A revolution is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. No, not the one you've been hearing about in the media -- all the protests against dictatorship and oppression, in Egypt and Tunisia, and most violently, in Libya. The revolution I'm referring to certainly affects all those countries, profoundly, but its effects promise to outlast any change of regime, or even any new constitutions. Barely noticed by the West, many Muslim societies are experiencing a demographic transformation that is going to make them look far more European: more stable, more open to women's rights and above all, more secular. That change underlies all the current political upsurges.



The magic number in this story is 2.1, which is the fertility rate a society needs if its population is to remain constant. If the typical woman has significantly more than 2.1 children during her life, then that society's population will expand, and it will be a youthful community. If the rate falls below 2.1, then populations will stagnate and decline, and the average age will rise.





















Receive news alerts

Sign Up















Philip Jenkins



RealClearReligion







Muslims



Europe









According to a familiar stereotype, Europeans have lost the long term vision that would make them want to have large families, and religion no longer provides such an incentive: the closer a woman lives to Rome, the fewer children she has. When commentators look at modern Europe, they worry about the long term prospects for low fertility nations like Italy (1.39), Germany (1.41) and Spain (1.47). Pundits are all the more concerned when they compare these European rates with the notoriously high-fertility Third World demographic profiles that long prevailed across the Middle East. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario in which those mainly Muslim Middle Easterners outbreed and overwhelm the staid Europeans, creating an Islamicized Eurabia.



But here's the problem. In just the last thirty years or so, those very Middle Eastern countries that used to teem with children and adolescents have gone through a startling demographic transformation. Since the mid-1970s, Algeria's fertility rate has collapsed from over 7 to 1.75, Tunisia's from 6 to 2.03, Morocco's from 6.5 to 2.21, Libya's from 7.5 to 2.96. Today, Algeria's rate is roughly equivalent to that of Denmark or Norway; Tunisia's is comparable to France. Counter-intuitively, that remark about "the closer to Rome" also holds good on the southern, Muslim, side of the Mediterranean.



Just what is happening here? Everything depends on the changing attitudes and expectation of the women in these once highly-traditional societies. Across the region, women have become increasingly involved in higher education, and have moreover moved into full-time employment. That sea-change simply makes it unthinkable for women to manage a rampaging tribe of seven or eight children. Often, too, images of women's proper role in life have been upended by extended contacts with Europe. Migrants to France or Italy return home with changed attitudes, while families who stay at home find it hard to avoid the media portrayals of Western lives they see via cable and satellite dish. Maybe Europe and the Middle East are merging into one common Eurabia - but it's far from clear which side is doing a better job of imposing its opinions on the other. Presently, it looks as if the Maghreb is becoming European.



Such a wrenching change cannot fail to have political implications. In a country with a Third World fertility rate, it is very unlikely that women will seek or be granted education: their designated career path as mothers is starkly clear. Meanwhile, adolescents and young men proliferate, and provide ample cannon fodder for armies or militias, to whom life is cheap. (Yemen's fertility rate is still over 5.0, Somalia's is 6.4). But then imagine a newer, more European society, in which men and women are intensely concerned about their nuclear families, and have invested their love and attention into just one or two offspring. As citizens become more educated, they are not prepared to accept the demagoguery and systematic corruption that has long passed for government in those regions. They see themselves as responsible members of a civil society, with aspirations that demand to be met: they feel they deserve full democratic participation. Of course the recent turmoil began in Tunisia, with its very low fertility rate and its intimate ties to France.



Sudden demographic change also seems to be closely linked to secularization, a point of potentially great significance in the Middle East. Smaller family sizes can result from a decline in religious ideologies, but falling fertility can itself drive such a decline, as has happened in modern Christian Europe. When children abounded, as they did in the 1950s, strong pressures kept families close to religious institutions, as they sought common religious training and religious rituals. parents attended churches to ensure their children received the familiar cultural heritage. Church prestige rode high when priests were shepherding hundreds of local children through annual confirmation classes. But as the children became scarce from the 1970s onwards, so the churches emptied. At the same time, couples highly concerned with their own personal and emotional fulfillment became increasingly impatient about clerical attempts to enforce morality laws. Women, especially, became highly disaffected from the mainstream churches.



If the European precedent is anything to go by, that could well provide a model for religious developments in the Maghreb over the next decade or two. A society so dependent on women in the school and the workplace simply cannot support the kind of intransigent orthodoxies offered by the familiar Islamists. Extremists may not vanish overnight, but they will have to adapt substantially to present their message in a civil society with a powerful taste for democratic values and gender equality.



Demography is not, of course, the whole story. But it has to play a full part in any attempt to understand the current political revolutions in the Middle East.







Philip Jenkins teaches at Penn State University

Open Doors: Thousands Of Christians Have Fled Iraq Since Church Massacre

From Christian News Wire and ADF:

Open Doors: Thousands of Christians Have Fled Iraq since Church Massacre






Petition to Secretary of State Clinton Asks Protection for Religious Minorities



Contact: Jerry Dykstra, Open Doors USA, 616-915-4117, jerryd@odusa.org



SANTA ANA, Calif., April 11, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- "If this exodus is not stopped, Iraq will not have any Christians left in three years."



This statement is from Steve, an undercover field worker for Open Doors, and based on disturbing, updated statistics on the number of Christians left in the Muslim-dominated country.



Since the al-Qaeda-linked massacre that killed almost 60 Christians at Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad on Oct. 31, 2010, an estimated 45,000 to 95,000 Christians have left the country. Sources have told Open Doors that only an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 Christians remain in the country. Many sources reported that in 1991 Christians in Iraq numbered around 850,000, including those living in the Kurdish region. In 2003 the number dropped to 550,000 and in early 2010 there were 345,000.



"Due to killings, attacks and threats, many Christians have lost relatives and have become so afraid that they have left Iraq for such countries as Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan or for countries in the West," says Steve.



As a result of the increase in violence against Christians, Iraq moved to No. 8 from No. 17 on this year's Open Doors World Watch List of the worst persecutors of Christians. That was the largest increase of any of the 50 countries on the list.



Dr. Carl Moeller, Open Doors USA President/CEO, labels the attacks against Christians in Iraq as "religicide." He states: "Christians in Baghdad and Mosul are gripped by terrorism. They are fleeing in droves. Their families are threatened. Even young children are being killed. Extremists want to eliminate Christians from Iraq.



"The 'religicide' of Christians holds disturbing parallels to a previous effort to eliminate Iraqi Jews in 1948. Many Jews fled and today virtually nothing remains of the once-vibrant community. People of all faiths must unite to prevent this from happening again. We must fight for freedom of religion for all imperiled faith groups in Iraq."



Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Director of Interfaith Relations, adds: "Christians today are the largest group in the world facing life-threatening religious persecution. This should concern all fair-minded people, for two reasons.



"First, because it is the right thing to do. People are dying, and we can do something about it. Second, because events around us show that we can not afford to deal with regimes that will not provide basic liberties, and the extent to which a government guarantees religious freedom to minorities remains the best test of its commitment.



"We have it within our power to produce a groundswell of international support for what should be an obvious right: that when a person leaves home on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday for a house of worship, he or she should expect to arrive back home safe and unmolested."



Open Doors USA is requesting people to sign a petition to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The petition asks her to work with the Iraqi government to immediately form and implement a comprehensive plan of action to protect the vulnerable community of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq.



To sign the petition, go to members.opendoorsusa.org/worldwatchlist/petition/. Open Doors USA Advocacy Director Lindsay Vessey reports that the advocacy department has already faxed over 10,000 signatures on the petition to the International Religious Freedom office at the State Department. She also sent a letter from Moeller urging protection for persecuted Christians in Iraq.



An estimated 100 million Christians worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with millions more facing discrimination and alienation. Open Doors supports and strengthens believers in the world's most difficult areas through Bible and Christian literature distribution, leadership training and assistance, Christian community development, prayer and presence ministry and advocacy on behalf of suffering believers. To partner with Open Doors USA, call toll free at 888-5-BIBLE-5 (888-524-2535) or go to our Website at www.OpenDoorsUSA.org.



(To set up an interview, contact Jerry Dykstra at 616-915-4117 or email jerryd@odusa.org)