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offsite link Starmer Doesn?t Have a Feel for Politics and His Team Lacks the Skills to Run the Country, Says Vete... Tue Dec 24, 2024 19:00 | Will Jones
Keir Starmer "doesn?t have a feel" for the Labour Party or politics in general and his team lacks the skills to run the country, veteran Labour MP?Diane Abbott?has said.
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offsite link Church of England Tells Clergy to Edit Christmas Carols to ?Avoid Unnecessary Offence? Tue Dec 24, 2024 18:00 | Will Jones
The Church of England has told clergy in Birmingham to watch out for "problematic words" in Christmas carols that imply Jesus is the "true Messiah" or other religions aren't valid. And they wonder why the pews are empty.
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offsite link Best-Selling Hybrids Face Net Zero Ban From 2030 Tue Dec 24, 2024 15:42 | Will Jones
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offsite link Experts Call For Return of Lockdown-Style Social Distancing as Flu Surges, Claiming ?a Fifth of Thos... Tue Dec 24, 2024 13:46 | Will Jones
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offsite link How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en

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offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en

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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.

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