Free Republic

One of Iran’s most prominent actors on Wednesday posted an image of herself on social media without the headscarf mandatory for women in the Islamic republic. Taraneh Alidoosti’s apparent act of defiance comes as weeks of protests have rocked the country since the death of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman died in mid-September after being arrested by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly flouting the country’s strict dress rules for women. Alidoosti, one of the best-known actors remaining in Iran and who has publicly backed the protest movement, posted the image of herself with her head uncovered...

Women protesting against the suicide bombing of a school in Afghanistan, which killed 35 young Hazara women and girls on Friday, have been beaten and shot at by Taliban according to witnesses. Dozens of women from the Hazara community protested against the attack on the Kaaj educational centre in Dasht-e-Barchi, a neighbourhood home to the Shia Hazara community in western Kabul. Those who died in the attack were mostly Hazara women aged between 18 to 24 years who had been preparing for an exam. Women who gathered to demonstrate against the killings on Friday said Taliban forces opened fire and...

Sotoudeh has represented opposition activists and women who removed mandatory headscarf. Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, was handed a new sentence on Monday which her husband said was 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory headscarf, was arrested in June and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran's supreme leader, her lawyer said. She also was jailed in 2010 for spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security — charges she denied ... The news comes days after Iran appointed...

Geneva residents on Sunday voted for a controversial new "secularism law", which will among other things ban elected officials and public employees from wearing visible religious symbols. Geneva residents on Sunday voted for a controversial new "secularism law", which will among other things ban elected officials and public employees from wearing visible religious symbols. More than 55 percent of voters in the Swiss canton backed the law, final results showed, despite warnings that it could lead to discrimination, particularly against Muslim women. Some critics think it might violate the constitution. Geneva Canton, which for centuries has been a centre of...

Highlights Former world junior girls' champion Soumya Swaminathan has pulled out of the Asian Team Chess Championship, to be held in Iran Swaminathan cited the Islamic country's "compulsory headscarf" rule as violation of her personal rights In 2016, Indian shooter Heena Sidhu had withdrawn from a meet in Iran citing the same reason PUNE: Woman Grandmaster and former world junior girls' champion Soumya Swaminathan has pulled out of the Asian Team Chess Championship, to be held in Hamadan, Iran, from July 26 to August 4, calling the Islamic country's "compulsory headscarf" rule violative of her personal rights. "I do not...

SAN BRUNO, Calif. (KGO) -- ABC7 News sources confirm the YouTube shooter was a user of the platform. Nasim Aghdam has an alleged website with a manifesto that targets YouTube for censorship and demonetization of her video content. RELATED: 1 dead, 4 injured in shooting at YouTube HQ in San Bruno Aghdam is said to have no relationship with anyone in the YouTube facility. Sources say Aghdam did not have an ID badge but was carrying a purse. Nobody in the facility knew who she was. They added that Aghdam got off 30 or 40 shots before turning the gun...

As advertised, the President embarked on the first trip abroad of his presidency this week, with the initial stop being in Saudi Arabia. He was joined by both the First Lady and his daughter Ivanka. Seen exiting Air Force One, Melania Trump, as always, looked completely stunning.Since they were landing in Saudi Arabia, you may have noticed something conspicuously missing from the First Lady’s ensemble. She’s not wearing a head scarf as is the custom in that country and some other Muslim majority nations. (Ivanka was spotted not wearing one either.) Lest you think that Hot Air has suddenly turned...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, but chose not to wear a headscarf during her talks with the Saudi king, reports The Independent. Merkel was greeted by King Salman and other top officials upon her arrival at the western city of Jiddah. Like other recent female Western visitors, she did not cover her hair upon arrival in the conservative Islamic kingdom. .....

The European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday that companies would not be liable for direct discrimination if they put in place a general ban on employees from wearing religious garb such as the Islamic hijab (headscarf). “An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court stated. “Accordingly, such an internal rule does not introduce a difference of treatment that is directly based on religion or belief,” the court stated. “The rule thus treats all employees of the undertaking in the same way, notably...

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen canceled a meeting with a key Arab leader Tuesday after he insisted she wear a headscarf. The National Front leader who is a frontrunner for president was scheduled to meet with Lebanon’s grand mufti, an important cleric for Sunni Muslims, but backed out after it was made clear she was expected to cover her head, Reuters reports. “You can pass my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up,” Le Pen told the press.

BEIRUT – France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused Tuesday to go into a meeting with Lebanon's grand mufti on Tuesday after his aides asked her to wear a headscarf.

A converted Muslim’s federal lawsuit accuses a private security company of discrimination by rejecting her for employment because of her faith and her traditional religious headscarf. The lawsuit filed in St. Louis on Zahraa Imani Ali’s behalf against Securitas Security Services seeks class-action status. …

A Swiss court has ruled against a company that fired a longtime employee after she began wearing the Muslim headscarf, marking one of the first such rulings in Switzerland, media reported Sunday. A regional court in Bern ruled last month that a 29-year-old Serbian woman was fired without just cause from a dry cleaning business, and ordered the company to dish out back-pay and damages to her, the Le Matin Dimanche weekly reported. The woman, identified only as Abida, was fired in January 2015 from a job she had held for six years, after she began wearing the Muslim headscarf,...

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front Party, vowed that if she is elected the country’s president she would ban all public displays of religious symbols and clothing, including kippot. Le Pen made the statement during an interview on Sunday with France’s BFM-TV. She is expected to seek the country’s presidency in 2017. She heads the third-largest party in France. Le Pen is seeking to broaden an existing law, called the headscarf ban, that does not allow conspicuous displays of religious symbols in public schools to include all public areas. She called the ban a struggle against...

London police are asking for help finding two men who pulled off the headscarf of a Muslim woman in what is being called a racially-motivated attack. Police said Sunday the woman in her 20s was shocked and distressed after the Sept. 28 attack on a busy north London street. Police says she was not physically hurt. …

The Mayor of Luckenwalde, eastern Germany, has sacked a Palestinian intern for refusing to remove her headscarf at work. Elisabeth Herzog-von der Heide said the garment violated the neutrality of the town hall. Local German newspaper “Märkische Allgemeine” reported on Wednesday that the 48-year-old Palestinian woman was fired from her six-week internship with the “Perspectives for refugees” project after just one day. […] Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Sven Petke criticized Herzog-von der Heide's decision. “There are no legal grounds for this decision,” Petke said, adding that Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court had ruled that personal beliefs and their connection to...

The rise of radical Islamism throughout Europe has left no exceptions. Notoriously tolerant Sweden has found itself on the receiving end of multiculturalism, with religious extremism steadily gaining ground. Recently, a small town in southern Sweden was shocked by extremist stickers advocating violence toward non-Muslim women. Following the unhindered influx of migrants, which was heavily advertised by media and the majority of the political establishment, Sweden has seen an equally unhindered wave of sexual attacks. To add insult to injury, blatantly non-PC stickers advocating violence against women were spotted in the town of Nybro in Sweden's southern province of Småland, the local news outlet 24Nybro reported. "Women who do...

SHe sounds like a wonderful and loyal religious women. A Muslim woman is suing Long Beach police, saying an officer forcibly removed her religious headscarf during an arrest. The federal civil rights lawsuit was filed Friday on behalf of Kirsty Powell, who was stopped last May as she and her husband drove home. Powell says she was taken into custody on warrants and at the police station, a male officer forcibly removed her headscarf — the hijab — despite requests for a female officer. Powell says in violation of her religious strictures, she was forced to remain exposed overnight in...

Air France stewardesses, furious at being ordered to wear headscarves in Tehran, say they will refuse to fly to the Iranian capital when the airline resumes the service later this month. Female members of flight crews have been ordered to cover their hair once they disembark in Tehran and unions are demanding that the flights be made voluntary for women. The resumption of a thrice-weekly service between Paris and Tehran, planned for April 17 after an eight-year break, follows a thaw in relations since Iran agreed to dismantle large sections of its nuclear programme. Iranian women have been forced by...

Well here’s the verdict from the Newspaper of record, it’s another case of much ado about nothing: Michelle Obama Praised for Bold Stand She Didn’t Take in Saudi Arabia. So we’re officially bored with the story now that archival evidence has emerged of not just former Secretaries of State, Madeline Albright and Condoleezza Rice meeting with the King of Saudi Arabia sans headscarf, butt - quelle surprise! – former SOS and president-in-waiting herself:Did you have a question Abdul?My favorite headshot from the archives though has to be Nancy Pelosi from 2007, because you can tell that she’s been recently plastered....