UstaadKhan Articles

Burqas, hijabs, niqabs, oh my!

ali — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:32:05 +0000

Law 94 is veiled identity politics

By Sana Saeed
Published: 6:00 am

CORRECTION APPENDED

I suppose it’s time to address the rather large and noisy elephant floating between the margins of Aristotle’s lackey.

Law 94.

Just last week, the National Assembly passed a law banning the niqab from such critical public spaces as universities, government offices, daycares, and hospitals receiving government funding. The support for the ban has been strong throughout Canada, with an 80% approval rating according to a survey conducted by Angus Reid. Criticisms have been sparse, coming primarily from an unsure Muslim community, various lawyers, scattered academics, and select university papers.

But the general discussion on this matter has just been a mess, with a near complete avoidance in English-speaking Canada of the question of the role of identity. Given the provincial nature of this legislation, however, I will limit my discussion to Quebec.

As mentioned briefly in an article last month by Sheetal Pathak (“Muslim women don’t need saving from themselves,” Commentary, March 18), the Canadian Muslim community is itself divided on this issue. Unlike the hijab, there’s no real consensus on the status of the niqab. A small minority see it as an obligation – or at the very least, the superior form of the modesty principle prescribed by Islam.

While this debate is legitimate, it’s irrelevant to the issue at hand – the discussion on the matter within the Muslim community needs to move beyond the question of necessity. If there are women who believe it is their religious obligation to wear the niqab while living in North America, then that choice must be respected.

That cyclic debate along with broader reductionist debate on “choice,” grossly undermine women’s agency and completely overlook the greater context of Law 94 and the persistence of a discourse ultimately not about gender equality, secularism, integration, or identification, but about identity. And just as identity politics create a limiting framework for political discourse, identity politics can and often do create limiting platforms for legislation and issues regarding minority populations.

Quebec is not France. But like French identity, Quebec identity is built upon a shared linguistic and ethnic heritage as embodied by the historical interactions between church and state, epitomized by the near-total rejection of Catholicism during the Quiet Revolution.

And like France, Quebec has seen a surge in its immigrant population – which challenges a system long sustained by the province’s homogeneity. It is understandable that the majority of Quebeckers – outside Montreal especially – would fear the erosion of an identity with a tumultuous past. Quebeckers are, after all, a minority within Canada so the issue of identity is already fragile.

While this fear is understandable, it is not justified and it certainly should not be the source for any law. With only a few dozen women in the province actually wearing the niqab, how much of a problem does the covering actually cause? France’s proposed ban on the burqa, recently judged unconstitutional by an advisory board, affected only 367 women out of 5 million Muslims. How necessary is a law for an exception – especially at the expense of appearing hostile to a significant and growing minority? What’s more, where exactly is the line drawn? When does “reasonable” accommodation become “unreasonable”? Can any demand be unreasonable if it’s made in the name of identity and ideology? Is it unreasonable if by the minority and reasonable if by the majority?

All of this is not to ignore the obligation upon the Muslim community itself, as with any other ethno-religious group, to sincerely engage with such issues and ask themselves what is a “reasonable accommodation” to ask of the state. But this question and its implications are to be addressed and dealt with by the respective communities themselves as it hinges on their own identity and place in society.

For many, a law that discriminates against an exception may not be really consequential to the “big picture” in a negative or a positive way. It is, however, crucial that we consider the sort of framework this persistent debate and this particular legislation create for future discussions on matters concerning minorities. This discussion is not black and white, nor do I wish to even hint at such a claim. There are, however, some factors which play a stronger role than others and we must pay heed to their influence.

But until we get to future debates, I’ll keep rocking flashy and colourful scarves that my students seem to love for as long as I can.

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Quebec bans niqab

Asad — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:21:35 +0000

All I have to say about this is the same thing I had to say here: This will cause an international uproar, with mountains of blather about intolerance. Few, if any, in the mainstream media will note how severely the rights of non-Muslims are restricted in Saudi Arabia and in Sharia states in general, and few, if any, will even entertain the notion that France has a right to stand up for its cultural integrity and set some standards accordingly.

“Niqab for Muslim women banned in Canadian province,” from IANS, March 25 (thanks to Block Ness):

TORONTO: After France, Muslim women have been banned from wearing niqab in Canada’s French-speaking Quebec province.A bill tabled Wednesday will not allow government services to women wearing the niqab.

The bill comes after protests triggered by an Egyptian immigrant’s refusal to remove her niqab in her French languages classes in Montreal, forcing the school and the provincial government to throw her out.

The college says the Muslim woman was given the front seat in the class so that all male students sat behind her. She was even allowed to make presentations from the rear of the classroom with her back to the class which had three male and 17 female students.

However, students and the college authorities were shocked when one day the woman asked male students to move away from her and refused to sit with them around a U-table to converse and learn French pronunciation.…

The government last week ordered that every niqab-clad woman must uncover her face to confirm her identity when applying for her medicare card. Wednesday’s bill will be the first such step in North America to curtail any religious dress.

According to the bill, women seeking medical and auto insurance services will have to remove their veil, adding that face coverings will not be tolerated in people’s dealings with government officials.

Speaking to the media, Quebec premier (equal to chief minister in India) Jean Charest said the step was needed for maintaining gender equality and secular character of public institutions.

“This (bill) is a symbol of affirmation and respect – first of all, for ourselves, and also for those to whom we open our arms. This is not about making our home less welcoming, but about stressing the values that unite us.

“An accommodation cannot be granted unless it respects the principle of equality between men and women, and the religious neutrality of the state,” the premier said….

Posted by Robert on March 25, 2010 11:04 AM

Quebec bill would ban niqabs to all receiving government services

ali — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:12:15 +0000

Graeme Hamilton, National Post Published: Wednesday, March 24, 2010

A proposed Quebec bill would deny accommodations of religious differences in cases where safety, communications or identification so require.

MONTREAL — Quebec will refuse all government services, including education and non-emergency health care, to fully veiled Muslim women under legislation tabled on Wednesday in the National Assembly.

Jean Charest, the Liberal Premier, said the bill establishing guidelines for the accommodation of religious minorities is aimed at “drawing a line” to demonstrate that gender equality is a paramount Quebec value.

“If you are someone employed by the state and you deliver a service, you will deliver it with your face uncovered,” he told reporters in Quebec City. “If you are a citizen who receives services, you will receive them with your face uncovered.”

The bill applies to not only government departments and Crown corporations but hospitals, schools, universities and daycare centres that receive funding from the province.

The proposed guidelines in Bill 94 follow an uproar this month over the expulsion of a niqab-wearing woman from French courses after she insisted that male students in her class not see her face. Quebec’s Immigration Department tracked her to a second college where she was studying French and had her expelled again because she would not remove her niqab, a veil that leaves open a slit for the eyes.

“If you want to integrate into Quebec society, here are our values,” Immigration Minister Yolande James said at the time. “We want to see your face.”

Quebec, which for more than three years has been grappling with the issue of accommodating religious differences, is the first province to take such a stance against the niqab and burka.

In Ontario, women wearing a full veil can make special arrangements to receive government services without exposing their faces to male bureaucrats.

Canada’s chief electoral officer has ruled that under current law, veiled women can cast ballots. In France, on the other hand, President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday pledged to introduce legislation banning outright the full Muslim veil, which he called “contrary to the dignity of women.”

Salam Elmenyawi, head of the Muslim Council of Montreal, said it makes no sense for Quebec legislators to be worrying about a practice that remains marginal.

Of the more than 200,000 Muslims in the province, he estimates that just two dozen wear a full veil. He called it “very troubling and serious” that the government has tailored legislation that “points a finger” at the Muslim community.

“If we are talking about integration, then this is actually much worse, because it will prevent them from integrating or changing their ideas,” Mr. Elmenyawi said. “We should leave society to self-adapt, let them either explain themselves to their fellow citizens or adapt and change their ways.” He predicted that if the bill becomes law, it will be challenged as an infringement of the freedom of religion guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Mr. Charest said government lawyers believe that the bill respects the Charter. It reflects his government’s commitment to “open secularism,” he said, noting that other religious symbols such as the Christian crucifix, Jewish skullcap and Muslim headscarf can continue to be worn by those providing and receiving government services. The niqab and burka are considered unacceptable in part because they interfere with security, identification and communication.

The opposition Parti Québécois wanted the government to go farther in establishing that Quebec is a secular state, prohibiting government employees from wearing any visible religious symbols.

Ms. James said the legislation sends a message to recent immigrants. “Quebec opens its doors to new arrivals as they are, but they must equally agree to adopt the values of Quebec society,” she said.

Philippe Archambault, an aide to Justice Minister Kathleen Weil, confirmed that the law will apply to the full array of government services, from students attending college to patients seeking a check-up. A humanitarian exception would be made for someone requiring emergency medical care, he said.

Daniel Weinstock, a professor of philosophy at Université de Montréal, said the bill does a good job of grouping together existing rules that limit the granting of accommodations to religious minorities. For example, it makes clear that gender equality and the state’s religious neutrality must be respected.

“There’s a perception out there in Quebec that the granting of accommodations is excessive and anarchic, that there are really no principles involved and it’s just whoever’s whim happens to be holding sway,” he said. “I think that is factually incorrect.”

Mr. Weinstock said Quebec is addressing head-on issues that are being ignored elsewhere in Canada. “This is a very good thing,” he said. “Whatever happens as a result of the debates in the National Assembly over this bill, and whatever the final form of this legislation is, we are having a very interesting societal debate here in Quebec that has to do with issues that are not specific to Quebec.”

National Post

Quebec lifts the face veil

Abdurrahman — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:51:13 +0000

Bill 94 on accommodation; Your face must be bare to work in public sector, get state services
By Kevin Dougherty, Gazette Quebec Bureau

A Muslim woman wearing a niqab. Under Bill 94, women wearing the niqab will have to reveal their faces to be served in public institutions.

QUEBEC – Quebecers were asked Wednesday to put a new face forward – an uncovered one – as the Charest government announced guidelines on reasonable accommodation that ban the niqab, the Islamic face veil, while allowing the hijab, or head scarf.

Public employees, education and health workers will be required to have their faces uncovered under Bill 94, presented in the National Assembly Wednesday.

Quebec is also lifting the veil on people seeking government services – for example, those who show up looking for student loan information, or trying to cash in a winning lottery ticket at Loto-Québec, a government agency, or challenging a bill at Hydro-Québec.

Students from daycare all the way to university, as well as hospital patients and people consulting a CLSC nurse, must also show their faces.

“Today, the government has taken a determined step to clarify the issue of reasonable accommodation and to affirm Quebec values,” said Premier Jean Charest.

The premier said the ban on face veils would apply to all employees in the public sector, even if they have no contact with the public.

Conseil du statut de la femme president Christiane Pelchat, who wants a ban on religious symbols and would like Quebec to be a secular state, supports this limited measure as a first step.

“I urge the opposition to vote quickly for this,” she told reporters.

But Louise Beaudoin of the Parti Québécois was quick to reply that Bill 94 was “completely empty,” saying it relies on Quebec’s existing Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

Beaudoin said the PQ would propose amendments to the charter so it takes into account “the fundamental values of the Quebec nation, notably the equality of women and men, the primacy of French and the separation of the state and religion.”

The PQ proposal would also grandfather Quebec’s Christian past, designated its “historic heritage.”

The government is thought to be eager to adopt Bill 94 before the Assembly recesses in June, but the next step will be committee hearings. And the PQ opposition hopes to turn those hearings into a debate on its proposal to make Quebec an officially secular state.

Bill 94 is designed to defuse the controversy simmering in the province over religious face coverings since a woman wearing a niqab was expelled twice from French courses for immigrants after refusing to uncover her face.

The woman, Naema Ahmed, has filed a complaint with Quebec’s human rights commission, charging religious discrimination.

Bill 94 would also end the practice of a man or woman being allowed to ask for service by a public employee of the same sex for religious reasons, Pelchat said.

She said that she worked with the government in framing the bill and that the intent of Section 4, affirming gender equality and the religious neutrality of the state, is to end this type of concession.

“This is a bill to protect equality between women and men,” she said.

In the past, Pelchat has objected to Islamic women asking that a female photographer take their picture for medicare cards and Hasidic Jewish men who ask for male driving-test examiners.

Bill 94 says accommodations must be denied for reasons of “security, communication or identification.”

But it would not ban the hijab, kippa, turban or other other religious head coverings that leave the face visible.

Justice Minister Kathleen Weil, who presented Bill 94, said accommodations for religious differences “cease to be reasonable when they impose an excessive constraint on a department or (public) organization in terms of the costs incurred, its impact on the proper functioning of the organization or on the rights of other people.”

“In other words, when accommodation becomes unreasonable,” she said.

Weil called the approach “open secularism,” explaining it doesn’t “favour or disfavour one particular religion.”

“So religious signs, such as a cross around the neck of state employees, are allowed because they do not cast doubt on the neutrality of the service offered.”

Immigration Minister Yolande James added that Bill 94 “could not be more clear.”

“To work in the Quebec public service or to receive the services of the Quebec state, your face has to be uncovered,” James said.

The bill establishes guidelines for reasonable accommodation requests, she said, and is an expression of “interculturalism,” which she called the government’s philosophy to integrate newcomers.

The Bouchard-Taylor commission, which reported two years ago on the issue of reasonable accommodation, proposed “interculturalism” as a way to extend a hand to newcomers – asking them to accept Quebec’s values while remaining open to their differences.

“We need these talents,” James said. “Quebec society chose them for the potential we recognize in them, and they chose Quebec for all the possibilities it offers them to do well.

“We do, however, ask newcomers to respect the common values of Quebec,” James said, calling these values “the foundation of Quebec identity.”

Charest expressed surprise at the reaction outside Quebec to the explanation by James for expelling Ahmed from French classes for wearing a niqab.

“We want to see your face,” James said then, unleashing a torrent of editorials and commentaries condemning the niqab ban.

Charest said he hopes Bill 94 gets serious consideration, not the same “knee-jerk reactions,” adding that what he saw in some newspapers doesn’t reflect the reality of Quebec.

But he has no illusions Bill 94 will end the debate.

“If you have a charter of rights, as we do here and elsewhere in the world, there’s going to be case-by-case approaches,” he said.

“Our responsibility is to establish clearly the principles, which we are doing now. And then people are in a better position to make those decisions.”

Charest said he hopes Bill 94 will be a model for other jurisdictions to follow, calling it “common sense.”

kdougherty@thegazette.canwest.com

Quebec man convicted of planning bombings

Abdurrahman — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:01:23 +0000

By The Globle and Mail

Canada’s spy service may not be able to get alleged terrorists deported, but the country’s police are finding ways to get them convicted: Said Namouh, an al-Qaeda-inspired Internet propagandist who never fired a bullet or built a bomb, was found guilty yesterday of four offences in a Montreal court.

Mr. Namouh, a 36-year-old immigrant from Morocco, was convicted of conspiring with an Austrian to orchestrate suicide bomb attacks in Europe. He was arrested in 2007 in central Quebec as he prepared to travel to the Middle East to meet with conspirators. The conviction is the latest in a string of victories for a robust criminal-terrorism law.

It’s “a demonstration that the system works, that the police with their counterparts in other countries can stop people before it’s too late,” prosecutor Dominique Dudemaine said.

“The minister of justice at the time [of the law's passage] said, ‘If terrorists get on the plane, it’s too late, we’ve failed.’ ”

The victory for police comes even as Canadian intelligence officials are struggling to get people they suspect of terrorism onto planes out of the country for good. Cases involving security certificates – a Cold-War-era power the federal government uses in its bids to deport foreigners suspected of dangerous activities – are going nowhere as judges and the public grow wary of their spy-world tactics and their secret evidence.

The newest tool in Canada’s counterterrorism arsenal is a police power, the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act, which created a range of new criminal offences and requires authorities to prove their charges beyond a reasonable doubt in open court.

That approach appears to be paying dividends. The case against Mr. Namouh is the third prosecuted under the ATA, after the 2008 conviction of a bomb-builder, Ottawa’s Momin Khawaja, along with four young extremists convicted so far in the ongoing, so-called Toronto 18 terrorism conspiracy case.

Each case involved Canada-based extremists inspired by al-Qaeda.

Mr. Namouh is the first Quebecker caught under these laws, and also the first terrorist for whom the “smoking gun” was his Internet activity. After prosecutors aired his e-mails and chats, he was also found guilty of extortion and of two counts of assisting a terrorist group.

That group, the Global Islamic Media Front, exists only online. It doesn’t run training camps and its members don’t generally perpetrate attacks, but they play a key role in distributing propaganda that fuels Islamist extremism and terrorist recruitment.

While living in Maskinongé, Que., much of Mr. Namouh’s energies were spent editing and distributing propaganda and instructional videos. “The accused was an important participant in the activities of the GIMF,” Quebec Court Judge Claude Lebond wrote in his ruling, noting that these activities included distributing ransom demands from Palestinian terrorists after the 2007 kidnapping of a BBC journalist.

Prosecutors are considering seeking a life sentence for Mr. Namouh, while the defence will argue that the two years he spent in jail awaiting trial is sufficient. The case against Mr. Namouh was remarkably efficient, especially compared to the security certificate system, which is mired in court challenges.

As Canada’s police find that they can clear the high bar of proof in criminal terrorism cases, spies are getting tripped up over their much lower standard of “reasonable suspicion” in their system. This may be because the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act – passed in 1984 – is becoming somewhat antiquated in a world of growing transparency.

Accustomed to shadows and unaccustomed to courts, CSIS finds itself somewhat adrift in a world where judges hold spies to standards similar to those police must meet. For example, after years of multimillion-dollar litigation, government lawyers scuttled one of the CSIS-initiated security certificate cases on Wednesday because the Crown said it would rather let a Moroccan Montrealer, Adil Charkaoui, go free than comply with a judge’s order to reveal spy secrets.

Four other security-certificate deportation cases, some dating back to 1999, hang unresolved. The ascendancy of the ATA and the ongoing trend to bringing intelligence cases into the public courts mean police are likely to become the face of Canadian counterterrorism, while CSIS will likely retreat into the shadows – if it still can.

Student files rights case over Quebec niqab ban

sufisahab — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:41:11 +0000

After demands escalate, woman gets ultimatum: Drop class or headwear

Jonathan Montpetit The Canadian Press

MONTREAL–After months of balancing a woman’s religious beliefs with her desire to learn French, the Quebec government stepped into her classroom to offer an ultimatum: take off the niqab or drop the course.

The woman opted to keep her Islamic face-covering and has filed a human rights complaint against the government.

In a province where the government frequently faces accusations of doing too much to accommodate minorities, these actions have prompted a fair bit of praise.

The woman began taking a French course designed for immigrants at a Montreal college in February 2009 but she refused to remove her niqab while men were present.

The college was initially willing to accommodate her, but eventually balked as her demands escalated.

According to a report in Montreal’s La Presse newspaper, she was allowed to give a presentation with her back to the class and asked men to move so they wouldn’t face each other.

The breaking point occurred when the woman again refused to take off the niqab, though teachers had stressed it was essential they see her face to correct her enunciation and facial expressions.

In what appears to be a highly unusual move, provincial Immigration Minister Yolande James intervened. Officials from her department, acting with the minister’s knowledge, met with the woman to discuss her options.

“The government has specific pedagogical objectives in its French courses,” said James’s spokesman, Luc Fortin. “We couldn’t accept that these objectives, or the learning environment in the class, be compromised.”

Several groups, including several teachers’ unions, applauded the government for drawing a line in the sand. So did moderate Muslim groups.

“When people come to Canada, we’re not coming to the Islamic Republic of Canada,” said Raheel Raza, a Muslim women’s-rights activist who has argued for a public ban on religious face coverings.

“We are coming here because we want that freedom, we want the separation of church and state.”

But one Muslim group disagreed.

The Canadian Muslim Forum, which claimed the woman was intimidated by other members of her class, said the move amounts to a misreading of the situation.

“In Quebec people have the right to wear what they want,” spokeswoman Kathy Malas said.