Free Republic

School students must shake their teachers’ hands or their parents will be liable to pay a fine of up to 5,000 francs, authorities in the canton of Basel-Country have ruled. The decision, announced on Wednesday, comes nearly two months after two Muslim schoolboys refused to shake their female teacher’s hand at a school in Therwil, near Basel, because they said physical contact with a woman who wasn’t a family member went against their religion. The incident caused outrage across Switzerland, not only because it was seen as sex discrimination but because their refusal was considered an affront to an intrinsic...

When she was 16, Rana Abdelhamid was accosted on the streets of New York by a man who tried to pull off the head scarf she wears as a symbol of her commitment to her Muslim faith. Rather than withdraw, as she'd seen other Muslim women do, she turned her anger into a program that is now working with young Muslim women to teach them self-defense while encouraging them to become leaders and role models for others in their communities. Abdelhamid, a graduate of Vermont's Middlebury College who is now a student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, says...

Teenage girl victim of grooming gang 'raped by 30 men in just six hours including father and schoolboy son' A teenage girl was groomed and raped by up to 30 Asian men - including a father and his schoolboy son - during an horrific sex attack lasting six hours, an inquiry heard. Campaigner Shaista Gohir MBE detailed abuse of the young vulnerable Asian girl in a shocking report highlighting how rife grooming was within ethnic communities. She claimed that sexual exploitation and grooming of young Asian girls by men of the same ethnic origins was happening under the noses of...

Islamist rebels in eastern Syria have ordered women to put on the Islamic veil, warning that anyone not doing so would be held to account, Reuters reports. According to the report, an organization calling itself the Islamic Law Council of Deir al-Zor said in a statement released Wednesday that women have until Saturday to don the face veil. The group did not say what punishment would befall women who fail to comply with the order. …

Female Salafi Candidate for Egyptian Parliament: "Women Are Deficient in Intelligence and Religion, and It Is Not Permissible for Them to Be in Authority" A female salafi candidate for Egyptian Parliament, Muna Salah, said to al-Sharq al-Awsat that women are deficient in intelligence and religion, and it is not permissible for them to be in authority or to occupy the office of the presidency. She defended her candidacy for the People's Council, saying that acting as a representative in the Council only partial authority and not complete authority, such as the presidency of the republic. She added that she seeks...

A man who ripped out his wife's eyes in a fit of rage was sentenced by a French court to 30 years behind bars on Tuesday. Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him. Bari, who had demanded a divorce before the attack, was permanently blinded. Hadfi, a Moroccan, initially fled to Germany. He was arrested and sent back to France, where he was indicted for "acts of torture and barbarity leading...