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In a letter to parliament, Dutch Education Minister Ronald Plasterk writes that the government intends to introduce a burqa ban in education. Not only teachers and schoolchildren, but also parents and school caretakers will be banned from wearing face-covering garments, both inside the school building and outside in the playground. The minister writes that it is important for children to learn that proper communication requires being able to look the other person in the eye.

A Muslim member of the French Government has attacked the head-to-toe Islamic dress as a prison, applauding a court decision to deny citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wore it. “The burka is a prison, a strait-jacket,” Fadela Amara, the Minister for Urban Affairs and a longstanding women's rights campaigner, said yesterday. “It is not religious. It is the insignia of a totalitarian political project for sexual inequality.” The court decision denying Faiza Mabchour, 32, French citizenship has drawn approval from both Left and Right, highlighting a rejection of Muslim customs that conflict with the values of the secular French...

The fiancée of one of the leaders of the failed July 21 suicide attacks has been sentenced to three years in jail for helping him escape by dressing in a burka as a Muslim woman. Fardosa Abdullahi, who was 17 at the time, gave Yassin Omar her mobile phone handset, provided a scarf and handbag for his disguise and accompanied him to Golders Green coach station where he fled to Birmingham in his feminine disguise. Omar's family persuaded her to contact police but she claimed she did not know where he was and it was not until six days after...

Muslim women of the Middle East and beyond are shielded, clothed, and occulted away through a series of archaic dress rituals, collectively known as the Hijab, that subjugates and entraps them to an ossified code of conduct, which long ago, should have been abandoned. The Abbaya, Burqa, and Niqab, function as baggy drapes of cloth, which render Muslim women formless, invisible to her surroundings, a non-entity outside the domestic sphere, and should be viewed as a transgression against God's wishes...I present to you, the Beautiful and Vivacious Ladies of Iran, unhijabbed and free...

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...

THE HAGUE, 25/04/08 - The cabinet proposal to ban face-covering clothing for government functionaries, in education and in public transport is supported by the Lower House. But the Christian democrats (CDA) and Labour (PvdA) disagree over a ban in the health sector. The CDA wants to extend the 'burqa ban' to the health sector. "We do not want any face-covering in healthcare, certainly not among the personnel," according to MP Madeleine van Toorenburg. PvdA MP Jeroen Dijsselbloem is unconvinced. "The healthcare sector has never been asked for its opinion," he tried. But CDA's Healthcare Minister Ab Klink told Van Toorenburg...

NOUAKCHOTT, April 10 (Reuters) - Mauritanian police arrested a suspected al Qaeda militant accused of killing four French tourists as he attempted to avoid capture disguised as a woman, a government spokesman said on Thursday. Marouf Ould Haiba is one of four suspected al Qaeda militants accused of killing the French tourists during a roadside picnic last Dec. 24. Fellow suspect Sidi Ould Sidna escaped from police custody outside a courtroom last week, sparking a manhunt that has led to two fatal shootouts in the usually sleepy capital Nouakchott that have killed three people in as many days. Police arrested...

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...

The bright blue veil of the burqa is one of the most iconic and widely worn pieces of women’s clothing in Afghanistan. Since the fall of the Taliban, fewer women wear the burqa in Kabul, but elsewhere, in the provinces, the burqa is as ubiquitous as ever. The Zamarai family, shown in the video, have been tailors and burqa-makers for three generations. But recently there’s a new player in the Kabul burqa market: China, which mass-produces a style of burqa that many women here find more fashionable than the Zamarais’ traditional hand-assembled garments. The Chinese-made burqas’ tightly-crimped folds and machine-produced...

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...

ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A woman carrying a waistcoat filled with explosives under her all-enveloping burqa was arrested on Monday in eastern Afghanistan, provincial officials said, in the first possible reported case of a female suicide bomber in the country. She was arrested on a tip-off in Jalalabad after being followed by intelligence department officials near the border with Pakistan. The elderly woman's identity was not given, but she was now being questioned, officials said. It was not immediately clear if the woman wanted to use the explosives herself or was carrying the bomb to deliver it. If the former,...

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...

via translation - PESHAWAR (Pakistan) - A woman suicide bomber dressed in a burqa, the veil full traditional Afghan women, detonated the bomb she was wearing next to a military checkpoint in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, make killed or wounded, said the police. It is the first suicide bombing ever perpetrated by a woman in Pakistan, assured AFP Mohammad Sharif, the chief of police in the province. A school run by Christian missionaries, as well as sensitive military installations, including offices of the intelligence services, are located near the explosion, said Kadir Khan, a police officer on the spot, to...

Mannequins removed from Peshawar shops after threats Islamabad (PTI): Garment shop owners in northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar are removing mannequins from their displays or covering them up with clothes following threats from militants. A meeting of the shopkeepers' association of Karimpura in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), on Wednesday discussed the threatening letters from militants. The association decided to either remove the mannequins from shops or cover them up fully with clothes. The meeting was informed that 10 militants visited Shaheen Bazaar, a market for women, and asked shopkeepers to remove mannequins. The militants claimed...

HIDDENITE -- A teller was robbed at gunpoint at a Hiddenite bank Tuesday afternoon. The suspect was dressed from head to toe. The robbery happened around 3:40 p.m. at People’s Bank on N.C. 90 East, five miles outside of Taylorsville. No one was injured. No one has been arrested. Alexander County sheriff’s deputies and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents are investigating the robbery. Deputies say the robber entered the bank, approached the teller and demanded money. The robber pointed a small handgun at the teller. The suspect (deputies have not released the gender) gave the teller a black plastic bag...

Afghan models reveal the beauty under the burqa By Jon Hemming Sun Sep 30, 9:03 PM ET MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A model strutting the catwalk is hardly revolutionary in most countries, but Afghan television's answer to "America's Next Top Model" is breaking boundaries and revealing the beauty under the burqa. Nearly six years after the overthrow of the strict Islamist Taliban government, almost all women in deeply conservative Afghanistan still only appear in public wafting past in the burqa's pale blue, their dark eyes only occasionally visible behind the bars of its grille. But in the relatively liberal northern...

One of the most remarkable among the many and varied tribal customs that survive in Saudi Arabia is one that forbids anyone at all seeing a woman’s face. In parts of the Al-Kharj region, not even a woman’s husband and children are permitted to see her face uncovered.In interviews with Al-Kharj residents, Sayidaty, a sister publication of Arab News, heard that often the first time even a daughter sees her mother’s face is after the mother’s death.“I always dreamt of seeing my mother’s face because I am a woman like her,� resident Hissa Al-Massareir told the magazine. “But because of...

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)...

The world's most upmarket beauty pageant - without a bikini in sight Last updated at 22:33pm on 28th July 2007 It must be one of the most upmarket beauty pageants ever - without a bikini in sight. Women from across the Arab world came together to compete in the Miss Arab World contest in Cairo - with Miss Bahrain, Wafa Yaqoop, being crowned the winner. It is the second time the competition has been staged.

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...

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...

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...

Muslim peoples excel at expelling imperial powers by terror and guerrilla war. So wrote Patrick J. Buchanan six months before Operation Iraqi Freedom. "They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon," he reminded us. Lacking institutional memory, Congress is blissfully unaware the history now being written on Capitol Hill will add yet another chapter -- "they also drove the Americans out of Iraq." And the scenario is eerily reminiscent of how Congress ensured a U.S. defeat in...

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...

A bus driver in Malmö has been suspended after he allegedly tried to stop a woman from boarding because she was wearing a burqa. The incident happened on Tuesday morning when Leonora Osmani boarded the number 35 bus on her usual route between the Rosengård housing estate and the city's central station. According to Osmani, the driver stopped her from boarding, saying that her burqa made her hard to identify. A burqa covers a woman from head to toe, with a small mesh screen to see through. "I have never before needed to identify myself on a public bus. Wearing...

74th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2007 Regular Session House Bill 3539 Sponsored by Representatives HUNT, ROBLAN; Representatives BEYER, BOONE, CANNON, CLEM, D EDWARDS, GELSER, KOTEK, READ, RILEY SUMMARY The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's brief statement of the essential features of the measure as introduced. Requires employer to provide reasonable accommodation to religious observance or practices of employee unless providing accommodation would impose undue hardship on employer. Requires employer to permit employee to use certain leave...

Here is a very odd music video by a group calling itself "Burka Band" where three women in full body blue burqas sing their song about...burqas. Very strange...but it's a must see.

COLCHESTER -- Caitlin Dean was raised not to discriminate against others because of their race or religion. But as a white suburban teen of Italian and Irish descent, she often wondered what it would be like to be the target of such abuse. She found out "behind the burqa."

A model wears an outfit by Fashion East designer Louise Golden during her catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Monday Feb. 12, 2007. The designers are showing their Autumn/ Winter 2007/8 collections. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) A model wears an outfit by Fashion East designer Louise Golden during her catwalk show at London Fashion Week in London, Monday Feb. 12, 2007. The designers are showing their Autumn/ Winter 2007/8 collections. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) A model wears a creation by Louise Goldin for Fashion East during 2007 Autumn/Winter show at London Fashion Week in London February 12, 2007. REUTERS/Luke...

Dramatic film of a fireman confronting one of the alleged July 21 bombers on a Tube train as other passengers fled in panic was shown to a jury yesterday. The CCTV footage showed Ramzi Mohammed, 25, wearing a rucksack and boarding the busy Northern Line Tube at Stockwell, south London. He turned his back towards a mother with a child in a pushchair before detonating his device. The detonator exploded, although the main charge, made up of liquid hydrogen peroxide and chapati flour, failed to go off. As other passengers tried to run, Angus Campbell, an off-duty fireman, stayed and...

The would-be suicide bombers gathered the night before July 21 in a flat in north Kensington in London; everything was ready for an attack that had been planned for weeks and was to be carried out with explosive devices cooked up on a kitchen stove, mixing high-strength hair bleach, nail varnish remover, acid, lightbulbs, batteries and chapati flour, the jury at Woolwich crown court heard. When the five men walked out of 14 Dalgarno Gardens the next day, Ramzi Mohammed left the remnants of a draft suicide note to his two children; evidence found later suggested a suicide video had...

Women wearing the burqa and other face-concealing veils could be banned from jewelry stores in a west Indian city after a spate of thefts involving burqa-clad customers, jewelers said on Thursday. More than a dozen thefts have occurred in jewelry shops in Pune in Maharashtra state in the past two months, with at least three cases of women wearing burqas spotted by surveillance cameras as they stole gold ornaments. "Police could not find any clue about the women's identity because their faces were covered," Fatehchand Ranka, head of the Maharashtra Jewelers' Association, told Reuters. Pune's jewelers, who deny targeting any...

snip In other action today in Iraq, coalition forces operating near Baqubah engaged and killed four armed terrorists and detained 11 suspected terrorists during a raid that targeted individuals associated with al Qaeda. ... One of the 11 terrorists detained was hiding in a house dressed as a woman, pretending to nurse a baby, officials reported.snip

THE HAGUE -- The Dutch government announced plans yesterday for legislation banning full-length veils in public places and other clothing that covers the face -- putting the Netherlands at the forefront of a general European hardening toward Muslim minorities. The Netherlands, once considered one of Europe's most welcoming nations for immigrants and asylum seekers, is deeply divided over moves by the government to stem the tide of new arrivals and compel immigrants to assimilate into Dutch society. "From a security standpoint, people should always be recognizable, and from the standpoint of integration, we think people should be able to communicate...

Dutch Muslims have hit out at a proposed government ban of face veils, saying it was over the top, ill-conceived and infringed religious rights. On Friday the Dutch cabinet said it was proposing a bill banning clothing that covers the face in public, targeting in particular Muslim woman wearing the burqa or niqab. The burqa is an Islamic veil covering the entire face and body and a mesh screen to see through, while the niqab is a veil covering the face but leaving the eye area clear. The garments are worn by a few dozen women in the Netherlands. Rita...

Holland is to become the first country in Europe to ban the burqa after the government announced plans to introduce legislation outlawing the head-to-toe Islamic garment "within days".The cabinet decreed yesterday that it posed a "terrorist threat" because it prevented the wearers' face being identified. The ban is likely to extend to all face-covering veils and prevent anyone "appearing in public with covered facial features". Rita Verdonk, the hard-line immigration minister known as "Iron Rita", has made no secret of her dislike of the garment, which she believes "aids and abets the repression of women". Calling it "a danger to...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch government agreed on Friday a total ban on the wearing of burqas and other Muslim face veils in public, justifying the move on security grounds. Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk will now draw up legislation which will result in the Netherlands, once one of Europe's most easy-going nations, imposing some of the continent's toughest laws against concealing the face. "The cabinet finds it undesirable that garments covering the face -- including the burqa -- should be worn in public in view of public order, (and) the security and protection of fellow citizens," the Dutch Justice Ministry...

The Dutch cabinet has backed a proposal by the country's immigration minister to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa in public places. The burqa, a full body covering that also obscures the face, would be banned by law in the street, and in trains, schools, buses and the law courts. The cabinet said burqas disturb public order, citizens and safety. The decision comes days ahead of elections which the ruling centre-right coalition is expected to win. Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk is known for her tough policies, and has clashed with past coalition partners. Late last year she said the...

misinformed tolerance finally hits its limits in Britain HOW tolerant must a free society be of those who are intolerant of the values it holds dear? This question is at the heart of a controversy that has flared up in Britain over the past fortnight concerning Muslim women who wear nikabs, burkas and other face coverings that allow little more than the eyes to be seen. Two weeks ago, former British foreign minister Jack Straw, writing in his local newspaper, criticised Muslim women who covered their faces, saying the practice maked "better, positive relations" between communities "more difficult". He added...

As I walk along a London street I feel completely cut off from the world around me. I'm in it, yet I'm apart. I'm wearing a burqa, the full-length Islamic veil that covers not only a woman's body, but her head and face as well.What I can see of the world, I'm seeing through a crocheted panel set into the black material. It stops me from really seeing where I am going and it stops me from seeing what's going on to my left or right. I feel like a blinkered horse, forced to look straight ahead, undistracted by what...

The row over Muslim women's dress codes reignited today after author Salman Rushdie declared that "veils suck". Rushdie, whose book The Satanic Verses triggered death threats from Islamic clerics, gave his full backing to Leader of the Commons Jack Straw for raising the issue. Rushdie was forced into hiding for 10 years after Iranian cleric Ayatollah Khomeini served a "fatwah" on him over his book's alleged slight on the prophet Mohammed. He had round-the-clock police protection costing nearly £1 million a year, although that has been downgraded in recent years after Iran indicated the death sentence no longer applied. But...

Following faith and fashion By Indlieb Farazi in Doha, Qatar Wednesday 29 March 2006, 12:56 Makka Time, 9:56 GMT The abaya is an over-garment worn by many Muslim women Reema and her friends are slowly parading around a Doha shopping mall, making sure their fashionable floor-length coverings are seen. The glamorous girls shroud their jeans and colourful tops with long black robes, mixing fashion with religion and tradition. "I think it looks really elegant. There are so many abayas on the market at the moment - the latest being the farasha, or butterfly-style abaya. It isn't tight-fitting like the French-style...

With security being tightened at the airports across the country in the wake of Tuesday's Mumbai blasts, a youth, who allegedly put on a `Burqa' (veil) to meet his girlfriend, has been detained at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport here, police said. The youth, whose identity has not been given out by authorities, was detained last night after police personnel got suspicious and asked women constables to check the credentials of the burqa-clad person. After being accosted, the person turned out to be a man and was immediately detained, following which senior police officials interrogated him throughout the night. Additional Police...

MODEL Michelle Leslie wore a burqa during her stay in a Balinese prison on drugs charges to avoid being raped... Leslie said she awoke in the Kerobokan prison one night to find a man sitting on the end of her mattress, laughing and singing: "Jiggyjig Missa Leslie. Bali holiday. Jiggyjig". "I knew jiggyjig translated into having sex," Leslie told the magazine. "He was saying Australian model and stroking my leg. I screamed: `Get out of here!'." Leslie said she was aware another woman was being taken from her cell regularly for sex, and realised her fate would be the same...

A lot of Muslim women would agree with "most" Australians who find the head-to-toe Islamic garb confronting, Prime Minister John Howard said. Mr Howard defended his comments that Australians find Muslim women wearing the traditional garb, the full burqa, confronting, but said he would not ban the practice. "Well I just think it's confronting, it's confronting to a lot of people," he told Sky TV. "I'm not saying it should be banned." The prime minister said he could not tell people what they should wear. "You don't ban what people wear and you don't pass laws on what people can...

Netherlands considers burqa ban The Dutch immigration minister says she will look into the legality of banning the burqa, the robes worn by some Muslim women to cover their bodies. Rita Verdonk made the pledge after a majority in parliament said it would support such a ban. The proposal was put forward by independent politician Geert Wilders. "That women should walk the streets in a totally unrecognisable manner is an insult to everyone who believes in equal rights," he said. "This law is a comfort to moderate Muslims and will contribute to integration in the Netherlands," he added in a...

Netherlands considers burqa ban The Dutch immigration minister says she will look into the legality of banning the burqa, the robes worn by some Muslim women to cover their bodies. Rita Verdonk made the pledge after a majority in parliament said it would support such a ban. The proposal was put forward by independent politician Geert Wilders. "That women should walk the streets in a totally unrecognisable manner is an insult to everyone who believes in equal rights," he said. "This law is a comfort to moderate Muslims and will contribute to integration in the Netherlands," he added in a...

Jumshedpur, India: Though it is an internationally accepted fact that osteoporosis is more common in women than men, prominent orthopaedics in the steel city have come up with an interesting finding. According to them, incidents of the disease in the city have been noticed more in burqa-clad women and those who have lesser physical activity than the office-going ones. Throwing light on prevalence of osteoporosis, Dr AK Verma, superintendent of MGM hospital said: “Women require a balanced diet, rich in calcium and Vitamin D. Women, particularly after menopause, are at higher risk and should maintain a good diet. They should...

According to NARAL and other organizations that claim to support the rights of women, George W. Bush must be some kind of backward-thinking, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. If you listen to their rhetoric, you’d think that Dubya must beat poor Laura with a club every night before sending her to a dark and dirty kitchen to toil over a hot woodstove. He probably makes his daughters wear chastity belts and floor-length bloomers, too.