New Events

International

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link ?If We Want to Reverse Global Warming We?re Going to Have to Be a Bit More Queer? Sun Dec 01, 2024 11:00 | Steven Tucker
"If we want to reverse global warming we're going to have to be a bit more queer." Chad Frischmann is a 'queer climate expert' convinced that gays have a "superpower" to solve climate change. Steven Tucker is sceptical.
The post “If We Want to Reverse Global Warming We’re Going to Have to Be a Bit More Queer” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link How the Rush to Net Zero is Accelerating Britain?s Industrial Decline Sun Dec 01, 2024 09:00 | Sallust
In the Telegraph, Jonathan Leake has written an article setting out how Ed Miliband's Net Zero energy policy is accelerating Britain's industrial decline in a way that's alarming our American allies.
The post How the Rush to Net Zero is Accelerating Britain?s Industrial Decline appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Nobody is Laughing Now at Joanna Lumley?s Remark About the Need for Wartime Rationing to ?Save the P... Sun Dec 01, 2024 07:00 | Chris Morrison
Three years ago, everyone laughed when Joanna Lumley said we might need to bring back "wartime rationing" to "save the planet". That turned out to be an accurate prediction, says Chris Morrison in the Daily Sceptic.
The post Nobody is Laughing Now at Joanna Lumley?s Remark About the Need for Wartime Rationing to ?Save the Planet? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Sun Dec 01, 2024 00:29 | Will Jones
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link International Law, National Self-Interest or Neither? Sat Nov 30, 2024 17:00 | Noah Carl
France and Germany are willing to sabotage their own economies (by sanctioning Russia) to uphold the ?rules-based international order?. Yet they are not willing to say they will implement a simple ICC ruling. Why?
The post International Law, National Self-Interest or Neither? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?110 Fri Nov 29, 2024 15:01 | en

offsite link Verbal ceasefire in Lebanon Fri Nov 29, 2024 14:52 | en

offsite link Russia Prepares to Respond to the Armageddon Wanted by the Biden Administration ... Tue Nov 26, 2024 06:56 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?109 Fri Nov 22, 2024 14:00 | en

offsite link Joe Biden and Keir Starmer authorize NATO to guide ATACMS and Storm Shadows mis... Fri Nov 22, 2024 13:41 | en

Voltaire Network >>

French burqa ban has nothing to do with women’s rights

category international | gender and sexuality | other press author Thursday July 22, 2010 13:26author by Clara Zetkin Report this post to the editors

The ban on the wearing of the burqa is wrong. Just as it it is wrong to force women to wear the veil. The French Left have been found wanting. Full story at link.

The fact that only one French MP - a member of the rightwing UMP - voted against the ban on the burqa says it all.
On July 13, the bill prohibiting the “covering of the face in public” received the votes of 335 deputies. The bill does not specify Muslims or women, but everyone knows who the targets are - the less than 2,000 women in France who normally dress in the full-length burqa or niqab. After the law comes into force next year - it has yet to pass through the senate and may face a challenge in the constitutional court - those who continue to cover up will face a €150 fine and/or compulsory citizenship classes. Those who “force” a person to wear such attire could be looking at a €30,000 fine and a one-year jail sentence (the penalties will be even stiffer if a minor is made to cover their face).

So what happened to the left opposition in parliament? The Parti Communiste Français, Parti Socialiste and the Greens abstained - or rather they staged a boycott of the vote. Not because they could not bring themselves to be present when such an appalling attack on an oppressed minority was being adopted, but because they did not want to appear “pro-burqa” by voting against the bill. PCF parliamentary spokesperson Roland Muzeau said that the law had “nothing to do with defending women’s rights” and would “stigmatise Muslims”. But he led his troops out of the chamber all the same.

It is likely the PCF would have voted for the bill if it had been limited to people working in public services or shops - most, after all, voted for the 2004 ban on the wearing of the hijab by Muslim girls in state schools. As it was, one ‘communist’ deputy, the anti-migrant, anti-European Union nationalist, André Gerin, voted with the government. Gerin claims that to wear the burqa is to “renounce the republic”.

Related Link: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=100403
author by V for vendettapublication date Thu Jul 22, 2010 14:21author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Where in the koran does it say women have to wear this kind of garment? It only says that women should show modesty in their dress. The niqab is a tool for the oppression and domination of women by men. Have some women come to accept their oppression so thoroughly that they even choose to oppress themselves??

If you really must, you can honour your god and, according to the koran, still dress more or less as you please, just show a little modesty. No need for any woman to ever wear the niqab.

author by Ronocpublication date Thu Jul 22, 2010 16:29author address author phone Report this post to the editors

So if they are allowed cover there faces in public, should all people then have the right to sport a Balaclava in public?

author by Richardpublication date Thu Jul 22, 2010 16:57author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Are not the burqa wearers an oppressed minority within an oppressed minority? Islam is also a form of oppression.

author by Fergal - nonepublication date Sat Jul 24, 2010 11:45author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Are you sure that the 2004 law was specifically aimed at stopping Muslim girls from wearing the hijab in state schools?I thought it was against all "ostentatious" signs of religion including the Jewish skull cap and the Christian crucifix.I have heard stories of French teachers asking students to put away their Christian crosses or to go home!Unthinkable in Mother Ireland
Incredibly only 16 Muslim girls turned up in September ,after the ban,to sate schools!All 16 then got classes at home provided by the state as far as I know.

author by Ex-Muslim.publication date Sun Aug 01, 2010 17:04author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Forcing women to cover up every piece of their bodies in public has nothing to do with womens' rights either I suppose?

Macho males take off the veils of their female slaves in the bedroom.

author by Clara Zetkinpublication date Thu Aug 05, 2010 14:00author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Peter Manson replies to left and right criticisms of his article above. You may access the critical letters at: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=828

The full text of Peters response is at the url below.

The publication in last week’s Weekly Worker of three letters, whose authors - Andrew Coates, Robert Wilkinson and Jacob Richter - share the anti-religious intolerance of much of the French left, was useful. It helped to reveal a mindset of what is, at the end of the day, a profoundly anti-democratic viewpoint that can only serve to reinforce divisions amongst the working class.

In response to my article, ‘French burqa ban has nothing to do with women’s rights’ (July 22), Andrew Coates states: “The defence of the burqa is part of a general trend to assert special, privileged protection for religious claims. It is root and branch against any form of equality. The assertion of religious rights, of which the ‘right’ to wear the burqa is just one, should be opposed,not embraced” (Letters, July 29).

In the same edition, ‘official’ communist Robert Wilkinson writes: “La laïcité [secularism] is a struggle against the separatism and privilege of any religion and a recognition that the ‘freedom’ of a few fanatical believers renders immense assistance to the far right in their demonisation of all Muslims.” Comrade Wilkinson does not say which ‘freedoms’ he would like to see ‘derecognised’, but, since the issue under discussion was the French legal ban on the right to wear the burqa and niqab, we can only assume that this is what he is referring to.

They are joined by Jacob Richter, who is the most blunt: “... the public display of religious symbols needs to be curtailed, whether they come in the form of saintly statues or burqas.”

author by European.publication date Fri Aug 06, 2010 21:25author address author phone Report this post to the editors

What a load of..........

Nobody in Europe minds women on the San Tropez beach walking around topless in skimpy bikinis.

Swedish beaches are full of nude people.

Irishmen used to race horses along the beaches of County Clare completely nude up to the 19th Century.

Only Muslims seem to have a problem with Nudes.

author by CZpublication date Fri Aug 06, 2010 21:31author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Forgot to add the link for Peters response:

Related Link: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004058
author by Clara Zetkinpublication date Thu Aug 26, 2010 13:41author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Some more correspondence.

Related Link: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=830
author by Muslim Woman.publication date Fri Aug 27, 2010 22:52author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Women love their faces.
That is why female face make-up is so popular around the world.

Only slave-driving men force women to cover up their beautiful faces.
Oppression.
Pure and simple.

Number of comments per page
  
 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy