Belgium bans the burqa, chador, and hijab.

[slowandeasy]

Okay. Use the same argument and ban Anglican vicars from wearing the dog collar or nuns from wearing the habit and see where your argument goes. I'll tell you. The ban gets immediately invalidated as discriminatory on religious grounds by every judge in Canada. Ban Eastern Orthodox priests from wearing those weird tall black hats or Jews from wearing beenies - same fucking result.

Oh and the silly "security argument": How many armed robberies or other serious crimes have been committed by Arab women wearing the niqab? Not many, right? Your little problem is that in Canada, one has to LEGALLY PROVE that there is a serious existing security issue that is of national importance before you can ban religious clothing. Guess you fuck up on that little problem, huh, all you niqab-haters.

Actually, Old Jones is perfectly correct. If you attempt to disguise an ordinance which is - deep down inside - motivated by racial dislike or religious dislike as "security" or "cultural values", it will still be declared discriminatory and invalidated by the courts. I mean, c'mon, guys. The only "security issue" or "liberating" that's going on here is that most of you fellas don't like Muslims and are gloating at the fact that they're getting kicked in the nuts in Belgium. And any half-smart Canadian judge is going to figure this out in 15 seconds and kick you and your silly "niqab security" ban out on its racist half-assed ass.

For some of us it has nothing to do with hating Muslims, or being racist. Why is that such a difficult thing for you to accept. Everytime I see a woman covered from head to toe, I wonder what the hell she or her family is doing in Canada. I cannot help but think that they have little or no understanding or regard for our society or values. Based on my candid conversation with many many Muslims, I believe that my views are true. One particular conversation with a very close friend was an eye opener. I had known this guy for 15 years, golfed with him, womanized and partied with him, traveled with him, etc... I thought he was extremely well adjusted to North American society, until one time when he started spouting off about "America's conspiracy to weaken the muslim world".

I don't support any bans like this, but I do believe that we need to have more people in Canada who want to live here, and who want to share in our society and value system.

 

[slowandeasy]

Regarding number 5 I am a member of that religion and am being persecuted. But I am a white male who wears western clothes so I doubt anyone will listen to my cries. If I was a "gay elf" then I am sure that I could have pressed it to the "human rights commission" though.

Bullshit... pure and simple bullshit this urban myth that a white male has no rights in our country anymore. It simply does not pass the reality test. What your are experiencing my friend is the reduction of your power and influence. At the top levels it is still a White Male dominated Western Society.

 

[oldjones]

Here are some examples reglious freedom infringes Gender rights :
* Forced to wearing a muslim veil , ( Canadian Father Kills His Daughter For Not Wearing A Hijab)
http://www.globalpolitician.com/23905-canada-islam
* Female circumcision: A critical appraisal
... The main reasons for approval were 'tradition' and 'religion' illustrating the strength of social influence ... pain and physical damage, even death, that circumcision has caused so many women and children ..
http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=r...=1&oi=scholart
Go read the The Constitution Act, 1982, which includes te Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Equality rights: (section 15): equal treatment before and under the law, and equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination.
Section 28, which states all Charter rights are guaranteed equally to men and women.

Old jones your arguement is soo fulll of it!!
Government have to protect the defenseless and the vulnerable!!!
If you quote ancient history of abuse from Quebec...I can quote ancient history of governments ( Britian, USA, Spain, etc)) abuses example white people who brought in slavery , ( USA killing the American Indian , Canadian government starving the First Nation, etc) Canadian government on the treatement chinese when building the railroad across Canada. For every mile of railroad built 1 chinese die. Chinese Head Tax. Japanese treatment in British Columbia during world war II by the Federal and British Columbia provincial government. Canadian Japanese are put into confindment camps.. Canadian Japanase property confiscated and auctiion off to the Canadian publiic.
Old jone, Are you a muslum fantaics ??? Do you worship the Muslim Taliban? Are you a extremely lefties wing nuts? Why don't you go live in Saudi Arabia and talk to the women who have to live there and forced to wear a veil...then come back here and see if your belief will remain the same as before!

You left out The English banning the wearing of kilts and tartans as a security measure. I believe they imposed the death penalty for it. And just look how secure and successful that measure was. I give thanks to no god daily for that bit of history. History will prove the Belgians, French and Quebecois to be equally stupid I am sure.

Your history list of abuses admiarably demonstrates that what looks sensible and is popular today may well be judged criminally abusive and intolerant tomorrow. Which is how this law will be judged.

But you're in favour of such targetted intolerance, I forgot. Perhaps instead of shreiking personal abuse, you might offer even a single example of the burka—you keep irrelevantly dragging in other items of dress that are not at issue—being an abuse of a woman that we need a new law to prevent. Why you think the Canadian Charter, which should protect those who choose the burka and those who refuse it equally should be relevant to a situation in Belgium I do not know, but you did take the trouble to find a citation. After all, as you quote, the Charter already makes it clear women have equal rights to men, so if they're being forced they have recourse. No new law needed.

You cited a brutal murder as "religious rights infringing gender rights". Hardly. A father killed the daughter he thought was disrespectful and disobediant in a rage. He's a murderer. No conflict of rights here at all. Just a horrible criminal tragedy, that he will suffer for the rest of his life.

Your female circumcision—more brutality, already covered under existing law—reference leads to abunch of stuff about molecular electron interaction. Try to calm yourself before posting such twaddle.

And I have read the Charter, thanks. I trust it will eventually protect us and Quebeckers from the sorts of idiocy the Belgians are up to. If not, we'll have to get to work on a better one. Me and the nice family round the corner where mom wears a niqab, and their daughter wears ordinary western clothes with a scarf the Queen might wear at Balmoral.

Takes all kinds to make a world, or a Canada, or even a neighbourhood. Don't try to hysterically force us all to be whatever you think we should be.

 

[slowandeasy]

And, PornAddict, you do know that all porn—far less racy than Playboy—condoms and all birth control were banned until the sixties for the same sort of unfounded 'reasons' you've advanced for your religious ban, don't you? With that handle you should.

And society didn't collapse.

LOL... oldjones, your reply was great. Like yourself, I love it when someone does not realize how ignorant they are about the broader topic that they are debating.

 

[slowandeasy]

You haven't quoted a single woman who says her gender rights have been trampled by anyone's religious rights or beliefs. So stop with the silly religion vs. gender thing.

At first I agreed with you Oldjones... however, in Ontario alone over the past few years we have witnessed a few incidents where
women were killed by their fathers/husbands/family members because they disobeyed their parents.

In my 2nd year of university, I became friends with a number of Muslim and Sikh women whose parents had extremely strict code of conducts for them. In fact, had some of their parents known that they were hanging around with boys, they would have surely been reprimanded. One girl was taken back to Pakistan and married. She claimed that her husband forced himself upon her a few days after because she did not consumate the marriage. A number of others were also forced into marriages. The one girl who refused was ostracized by her family.

 

[PornAddict]

And we'll f___ing well force you to be 'free' —genderwise— to express your religion the way we decide, whether you like it or not.

You haven't quoted a single woman who says her gender rights have been trampled by anyone's religious rights or beliefs. So stop with the silly religion vs. gender thing.

That's why this is evil stuff.

Saturday, May 1, 2010
Iran: Suntanned women who look like 'walking mannequins' to be arrested under Islamic dress code

Iran has warned suntanned women and girls who looked like "walking mannequins" will be arrested as part of a new drive to enforce the Islamic dress code.

Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran's police chief, said a national crackdown on opposition sympathisers would be extended to women who have been deemed to be violating the spirit of Islamic laws. He said: "The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins.

"We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them."

Iran's Islamic leadership has in recent weeks launched a scaremongering campaign to persuade the population that vice is sweeping the streets of the capital. National law stipulates that women wear headscarves and shape shrouding cloaks but many women, particularly in the capital, spend heavily on fashions that barely adhere to the regulations.

The announcement came shortly after Ayatollah Kazim Sadighi, a leading cleric, warned that women who dressed immodestly disturbed young men and the consequent agitation caused earthquakes.

Another preacher warned Tehran's citizens to flee before the inevitable punishment for flagrant behaviour was visited on the city.

"Go on the streets and repent for your sins," Ayatollah Aziz Khoshvaqt, one of the country's highest clerics, told worshippers during a recent sermon in northern Tehran. "A holy torment is upon us. Leave town."

Telegraph
Posted by Cole

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

That's why this is evil stuff.

OLd jone I will repharse this quote for you

Under a false pretense of Freedom of Reglion somewhere in Canada a muslim household where a woman is give a tough choice on wearing a veil. You either wear a Muslim veil or you will be disown by the family.

THEN THEY CAME for the Muslim woman by forcing them to wear Muslim veil
but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a woman or a Muslim woman.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

That's why this is evil stuff.

Just look at Saudi Arabia , Iran ...who speak for them on their Gender rights? Freedom of Religiion tramps their freedom of choices.

 

[WhaWhaWha]

Banning the veil is no more liberating than forcing it. Neither one affords freedom of choice. I would personally love to see the veil eliminated since I revile any culture, religion, belief that inflicts such a dress code on anyone. Open discussion in media will bring the so called scholars behind this and honor-killings, acid-in-the-face, female circumcision, out of their dark ages but not for a generation or two.

 

[alexmst]

Certain European countries have so many Muslims there that the native European population is getting scared that they won't have a country anymore. So I think this law is designed to remove visible signs of the Muslim influx by making them at least fit in with the styles and customs of the nation.

I was talking with tourists visiting Florida last week from Denmark and France. Both moaned that they were "losing their countries" to Muslims. The Danish woman said that you arrive in Copenhagen and think you are in Saudi Arabia - they are everywhere, working the cash registers at the stores, walking on the sidewalks, they even wanted to do their public prayers in the grounds of the royal palace. The most noticeable aspect of them (the women) is the headgear. By banning it, the opinion is that they can stop their country turning into Saudi Arabia.

I said "If you don't want Muslims in your country in large numbers, why let them immigrate there?" They said, well, it would be racist to have immigration laws saying that Muslims aren't allowed because we don't like them". Well, Japan pretty much has a racist immigration policy and people don't protest outside Japanese embassies around the world over it. Saying it is for security is a bit of a stretch.They don't like their streets looking like a Middle Eastern bazaar - that is the reason. Switzerland banned certain new Mosque construction for the same reason - the image of Switzerland is of mountain alpine villages and picture postcard quaintness, not of giant mosque's calling Muslims to prayers over loudspeakers. I can sympathize with the Danish and especially with the French (although it is part;y their own fault for Algeria) . We don't have this issue in Toronto much. If thousands of Danes moved to Mecca and wore tank tops on the streets the Saudi's might freak out too lol.

Now I really find humour in Americans who come back from London saying why do the powers that be allow the Brits to build modern looking buildings in London? England should look 19th century like, with quaintness and tea and crumpets and men in straw boater hats and women with sun parasols. Modern office buildings are an American thing, and England should stick with their past charm instead - we could stay at home if we wanted to see office buildings. LOL. When I was in London a cabbie told me he got many U.S. tourists who woulds ask him to drive them to the "Shakespearean quarter" of the city...you know, where all the houses are 16th century so we can walk around and see how people lived back then. He used to laugh that it wasn't Disneyland...the Great Fire took care of that lot back in the 17th century, and the Luftwaffe took care of anything that escaped that.

Anyway, the Nation-State has its charm. Toronto is a UN City these days, and that has charm too. I can see the point of the Europeans though. If you go to Thailand, you expect the people to be Thai; in Tokyo you expect to find Japanese; In Shanghai, Chinese; in Arabia, Arabs; in London, Brits, and in Zurich, Swiss; in Copenhagen, Danes. If you arrived in Mecca and the streets were packed with blonde Swedes, you'd scratch your head. With this logic, race determines who should live in certain countries/nation states. The alternative view is one that Toronto has in which all races and religions are, at least in theory, supposed to bounce off each other in a social fabric where everyone is in it together a Star Trek view so to speak. A lot of people in Europe like the Nation state idea and the French in particular are scared sh**less of what the future holds for France in 50 years.

 

[basketcase]

Just to throw a different take on this, one could argue that this is not an issue of religious freedom but is one about culture. Women covering their face is not a universal feature of Islam. I believe that Islam promotes a chaste appearance which is interpreted in many ways, from clothing that covers from the ankles + wrists to the neck and covering hair to the afghan burkah. It seems to me that a good segment of religious Muslims do not believe that women must cover their face. As I posted in a similar thread, Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country even banned women from wearing head scarfs at universities.

Does the traditional garb of some Muslims pose any danger to Canadian society? It is debatable but for me it would make sense that every person be expected to clearly identify themselves when required. On the other hand, it would be good to have something that helps to ensure that Muslim women are not forced to dress traditionally but allows them to choose to express their faith when it doesn't interfere with security.

Are these movements to ban out of respect for women, security, or racism? I would guess 9% feminism and 1% security. You know what category the rest falls into.

 

[oldjones]

At first I agreed with you Oldjones... however, in Ontario alone over the past few years we have witnessed a few incidents where
women were killed by their fathers/husbands/family members because they disobeyed their parents.

In my 2nd year of university, I became friends with a number of Muslim and Sikh women whose parents had extremely strict code of conducts for them. In fact, had some of their parents known that they were hanging around with boys, they would have surely been reprimanded. One girl was taken back to Pakistan and married. She claimed that her husband forced himself upon her a few days after because she did not consumate the marriage. A number of others were also forced into marriages. The one girl who refused was ostracized by her family.

But banning burqas has nothing to do with such stuff. Nor is such bad conduct by parents exclusive to any one religion. It's bad parenting, whatever the nationality or faith, and we have laws—inefficient though they are—that deal with such. If they need to be toughened to protect kids let's get busy and do the work.

Bigoted crap like burqa bans is just a distraction.

 

[oldjones]

Saturday, May 1, 2010
Iran: Suntanned women who look like 'walking mannequins' to be arrested under Islamic dress code

Iran has warned suntanned women and girls who looked like "walking mannequins" will be arrested as part of a new drive to enforce the Islamic dress code.

Brig Hossien Sajedinia, Tehran's police chief, said a national crackdown on opposition sympathisers would be extended to women who have been deemed to be violating the spirit of Islamic laws. He said: "The public expects us to act firmly and swiftly if we see any social misbehaviour by women, and men, who defy our Islamic values. In some areas of north Tehran we can see many suntanned women and young girls who look like walking mannequins.

"We are not going to tolerate this situation and will first warn those found in this manner and then arrest and imprison them."

Iran's Islamic leadership has in recent weeks launched a scaremongering campaign to persuade the population that vice is sweeping the streets of the capital. National law stipulates that women wear headscarves and shape shrouding cloaks but many women, particularly in the capital, spend heavily on fashions that barely adhere to the regulations.

The announcement came shortly after Ayatollah Kazim Sadighi, a leading cleric, warned that women who dressed immodestly disturbed young men and the consequent agitation caused earthquakes.

Another preacher warned Tehran's citizens to flee before the inevitable punishment for flagrant behaviour was visited on the city.

"Go on the streets and repent for your sins," Ayatollah Aziz Khoshvaqt, one of the country's highest clerics, told worshippers during a recent sermon in northern Tehran. "A holy torment is upon us. Leave town."

Telegraph
Posted by Cole at 3%

When you can type coherently, without false emphasis, perhaps you might make a point worth debating, although you haven't yet. If you think forcing women not to wear something is better than forcing them to wear it—neither one alowing the woman to have an opinion of their own—then so be it. I can just hope you don't bring up children with the same hateful views.

 

[PornAddict]

. If you think forcing women not to wear something is better than forcing them to wear it—neither one alowing the woman to have an opinion of their own—then so be it. I can just hope you don't bring up children with the same hateful views.

By making a law forcing woman not to wear the veil you end up protect some innocent muslim girl ...you know for sure somewhere in Western Countries a Muslim family pressure their wife or daughter to wear a Muslim veil by saying they will be disown by the family or killed by ther father or brother.
This is what happen in Ontario. A father kills the daughter and the son try to cover up the Murder in Ontario.
If this law was in place in Canada the girl would be stay alive today. People like you try to do good but end up do more harm....you think you are morally correct but you forget to protect the defenseless and the innocent.
I guess the dead girl don't have know gender right at all....hmmm oh yeah she dead killed by the father. Father is charged with murder!

P.S. By the way my daughter was a friend of the dead girl.

Here are you two choice the lesser of the evil Law forbid Muslim to wear a veil at least you know it would not get her killed but she loses the right to wear veil but she still remain alive.
Allow religion of freedom somewhere in Canada a muslim female member of family might get killed or disown by the family if she refused to wear a veil.

Old Jone which option would you chose? Girl get disowned, killed by family member or Freedom of Relgion.

I can just hope you don't get some innocent muslim girl killed or physical abuse or disfigured or disown by her Muslim family in Canada with your naive views of Freedom of Reglion. If you have a daughter you would be standing up for her gender rights !

 

[onthebottom]

Have the cross or Yamaka been banned?

OTB

 

[oldjones]

Have the cross or Yamaka been banned?

OTB

Ah you recognize the familiar old path, don't you? Not in Belgium, so far as the OP's news story references can be relied on. Unlike the FRench, who used overt religious dress and symbols as their focus for repression, it would appear the Belgians are focussing on ace covering/exposure. Unanswered by the stories are questions like how small the opening in a burka must be to be prohibited, whether men can wear burkas, whether full beards are face coverings subject to prohibition, or permissable in theory, but prohibited as available to only one gender (gender equality being of vital concern to the OP), whether motor cyclists will have to give up tinted visors, and whether this will stop the creeping-in of Hallowe'en, which does bother the French.

 

[LateIAM]

I agree with this law as well. Them wearing it has nothing to do with religion either. It has only to do with them wanting to control their women. Belgium saying they can't wear it, is no different then them forcing women to have to wear it. I'd opt for them not covering up everything that makes them human and not property. Plus they need vitamin D.

And my grandmother's from Pakistan herself, so no, I'm not racist against Muslims.

 

[oldjones]

By making a law forcing woman not to wear the veil you end up protect some innocent muslim girl ...you know for sure somewhere in Western Countries a Muslim family pressure their wife or daughter to wear a Muslim veil by saying they will be disown by the family or killed by ther father or brother.
This is what happen in Ontario. A father kills the daughter and the son try to cover up the Murder in Ontario.
If this law was in place in Canada the girl would be stay alive today. People like you try to do good but end up do more harm....you think you are morally correct but you forget to protect the defenseless and the innocent.
I guess the dead girl don't have know gender right at all....hmmm oh yeah she dead killed by the father. Father is charged with murder!

P.S. By the way my daughter was a friend of the dead girl.

Here are you two choice the lesser of the evil Law forbid Muslim to wear a veil at least you know it would not get her killed but she loses the right to wear veil but she still remain alive.
Allow religion of freedom somewhere in Canada a muslim female member of family might get killed or disown by the family if she refused to wear a veil.

Old Jone which option would you chose? Girl get disowned, killed by family member or Freedom of Relgion.

I can just hope you don't get some innocent muslim girl killed or physical abuse or disfigured or disown by her Muslim family in Canada with your naive views of Freedom of Reglion. If you have a daughter you would be standing up for her gender rights !

We have a law against murder. If that didn't protect the girl from her brutal father, I cannot see how a law saying she had a right not to wear a veil would help. She already had that right. What she needed was support and places to go when she, as an adult chose to follow her own beliefs rather than her father's. A law banning burkas—or a hijab in her case*, (or long dresses, or girls wearing skirts instead of pants, or mini skirts, or girls wearing trousers instead of dresses) wouldn't have helped. A 24hr hotline to a police squad trained in such family violence might have.

How is forcing her not to wear the veil any better than forcing her to wear it? The Belgians propose to jail burka wearers, how's that different from the father locking his daughter in her room until she says she'll veil?

This is getting repetitious, girls have been beaten and abused and even killed by their fathers since before Abraham was a boy, because some men cannot control themselves. Nothing to do with anyone's religion. There isn't a woman who's ever lived in a family who hasn't bee told "You're not leaving this house dressed like that". You don't 'fix' the angry repressive men by abandoning the freedom of religion people died to achieve in order to impose your idea of some dress code. That's what those murderous dads do.

What you're saying is the problem is not that the women dress without regard for 'our'* ways. I commend you, few who have posted are so open-minded. As you say the problem is the domineering men who have not learned 'our' ways, and think they can force 'their women' to dress as they want.

It's the men (and the women who support their repression) that are the problem then. They don't wear the burkas, and banning the burkas won't do a thing to change them. In fact it just demonstrates that we're as ready to impose dress codes as they are. So you're saying they must be right.

What I prefer is freedom: of speech, association, thought, religion, media, from repression, the whole collection. Taking away freedom as the Belgians are doing in freedom's name is despicable.

*Interesting how a Belgian law—which has nothing to do w/ hijabs—keeps getting discussed as if it was a Canadian one that did.

 

[onthebottom]

Y

Ah you recognize the familiar old path, don't you? Not in Belgium, so far as the OP's news story references can be relied on. Unlike the FRench, who used overt religious dress and symbols as their focus for repression, it would appear the Belgians are focussing on ace covering/exposure. Unanswered by the stories are questions like how small the opening in a burka must be to be prohibited, whether men can wear burkas, whether full beards are face coverings subject to prohibition, or permissable in theory, but prohibited as available to only one gender (gender equality being of vital concern to the OP), whether motor cyclists will have to give up tinted visors, and whether this will stop the creeping-in of Hallowe'en, which does bother the French.

Would put a crimp on holloween wouldn't it?

OTB

 

[moviefan]

I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but I side with those who oppose the ban.

I understand the sentiment behind the ban, but a government legislating a ban seems the same to me as those people in this country who use so-called "Human Rights" Commissions and other measures to suppress ideas they disagree with. It's the wrong way to go.

We should promote change by respecting everyone's freedoms and allowing people to openly debate ideas. Legislating what others can think, say or wear is wrong.

 

[Frank Fingers]

I sure hope they ban them in Canada soon.

 

[sweetcookie]

I'm commenting as an individual and not as MOD100 representing TERB.

I totally agree with both counties decisions and your position.

Agreed!!!!