In February, 16 year old Muslim Najwa Malha decided, on her own according to the father (president of the Pozuelo Islamic Cultural Center and of the association that holds the local Mosque) to start wearing the headscarf. Nawja is Spanish of Moroccan origin and attends the Instituto Camilo José Cela at the Madrid locality Pozuelo…
Muslims in the Arab world are incensed and Muslims in France are walking a delicate line after President Nicolas Sarkozy pushed for an all-out ban on full Islamic veils. “Ridiculous” and “misplaced,” said a Muslim vendor Thursday at an outdoor market in a working class, ethnically mixed Paris suburb. “Racist,” said a Sunni Muslim cleric…
France’s government announced it would apply a proposed ban on face-covering Islamic veils to visiting tourists as well as residents, even as skepticism mounted over the legality of the plan. Junior family minister Nadine Morano said visitors would have to “respect the law” and uncover their faces, prompting critics to speculate whether Saudi luxury shoppers…
The French government will seek to ban Muslim women from wearing full-face veils in public despite warnings from experts that such a law could be unconstitutional. A spokesman for President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government said a bill would be presented to ministers in May and would seek to ban the niqab and the burqa from streets,…
Dutch judges have found the European Arab League not guilty of insulting Jews in publishing a cartoon suggesting they invented the Holocaust. The cartoon, first published four years ago and reprinted last year, was intended “to highlight double standards in society”. Judges ruled that while the court considered the cartoon insulting, the right to freedom…
