15 Jan - Australia:

SHOPKEEPERS are demanding sunglasses, baseball caps and religious face veils be banned to guard against criminals trying to hide their identities.

The Queensland Retailers Association yesterday declared its members should have the right to ban customers from wearing any clothing that obscured faces.

But the proposed ban has outraged civil libertarians, Islamic groups and Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Commission. They say the move would be unlawful and unfairly target Muslims and teenagers.

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The Australian Muslim community has accused the Federal Government and police of double standards over their treatment of a free online game in which the aim is to kill as many Muslims as possible.

Keysar Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association, wrote to the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, expressing outrage over the game, Muslim Massacre, saying it teaches young people to "further hate Muslims" and encourages them to carry out "acts of discrimination, vilification or outright violence against Australian Muslims".

The game, launched as a free download on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, invites players to take control of an American "hero" and "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons". [Link]

An India-born Sikh police officer has become the first in New Zealand to don a turban while on duty, breaking away from the tradition of the force.

Constable Jagmohan Malhi of the Nelson city in central New Zealand fulfilled his late father's dream by wearing a turban on duty, recently adopted by police as part of uniform.

Malhi, who grew up wearing a turban, had shaved off his beard and moustache "because of peer pressure", he said, adding that he also shaved his head three years ago when he graduated from police training college, the local media reported.

When Malhi's father, who wanted him to grow his hair again, died last year, he decided to fulfill his wish and launched his own personal campaign to have the protocols changed. The police hierarchy agreed too. [Link]

AN exclusive private school has apologised to a Sikh student it refused to enrol because of its strict uniform rules as part of an out of court settlement.

The student's family launched a landmark case last year after Brisbane's Ormiston College told them their 12-year-old son could only attend school if he cut his hair and did not wear his turban.

Uncut hair and turbans are both strict requirements of the Sikh religion.

The family, who cannot be named for legal reasons, lodged a claim with the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland against the college and its headmaster Brett Webster.

The family's lawyer Scott McDougall today said his clients were happy with the confidential settlement, which included a public apology.

"The main thing they wanted was broader understanding within the community to the importance of being able to choose an education whilst maintaining your religious beliefs and identity," Mr McDougall told AAP.

"We're hopeful that other schools will take note and it won't be repeated upon the Sikh community."

He said the boy was attending another private school where he was allowed to wear his turban and was doing well.

Mr Webster said the school was pleased the case was now resolved.

"What we have done is we've agreed to look at our policies and that's a commitment we will take seriously," he said.

"And if there's a need to modify our enrolment or uniform policies to remain aligned with the Anti-Discrimination Act then we will do so." [Link]

A Muslim-style turban is perceived as a threat, according to a new study, even by people who don't realize they hold the prejudice, dubbed "the turban effect" by researchers.

Research volunteers played a computer game that showed apartment balconies on which different figures appeared, some wearing Muslim-style turbans or hijabs and others bare-headed. They were told to shoot at the targets carrying guns and spare those who were unarmed, with points awarded accordingly.

People were much more likely to shoot Muslim-looking characters - men or women - even if they were carrying an innocent item instead of a weapon, the researchers found.

"Whether they're holding a steel coffee mug or a gun, people are just more likely to shoot at someone who is wearing a turban," says author Christian Unkelbach, a visiting scholar at Australia's University of New South Wales. "Just putting on this piece of clothing changes people's behaviour."

Unkelbach largely blames one-sided media portrayals for the bias.

The results would almost certainly be the same if this study was conducted in Canada, says Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress.

"I'm hoping that Canadian Muslims one day become invisible," says Elmasry. "As such, Canadians will treat them like any others."

Islamophobia - "latent" before 9/11 - is on the rise, he says, but there is very little research on the issue in Canada.

The new study "does confirm our biggest fear that there is discrimination and prejudice within our society, and unfortunately people don't recognize it or don't admit it," says Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal.

"Sometimes they really don't know that it does exist."

Beyond a turban or hijab, someone's name, skin colour or a long beard may also identify them as a Muslim and make them a target of prejudice, he says. Elmenyawi wears a head-covering and long beard and says he struggles between recognizing that negative stereotypes exist and not becoming "paranoid" that he might fall prey to them.

In fact, the Australian study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, confirmed that people don't even realize they hold these biased views. When the true intention of the experiment was revealed, Unkelbach says participants insisted they were not prejudiced and must have reacted differently from everyone else.

"The most common response was, 'I'm sure I didn't show that effect,'" he says."They're uncomfortable and I believe them - people are not doing this willingly. If they could, they would control that. Here, people are almost the victims of what they are fed by their environment."

A quick sampling of news items related to Muslims and the Middle East confirmed this, he says, with a focus on violence and terrorism almost obliterating more balanced stories about the culture and people.

"If everything about Middle Easterners is associated with terrorism, people tend to form stereotypes in their head," confirms Rima Wilkes, a sociology professor studying media at the University of British Columbia.

Even fictional media feed these biases, she says. One study showed that movies tend to feature "socially acceptable" villain stereotypes that have evolved over time, from evil Germans in the post-war years to vaguely Muslim bad guys more recently. Even swarthy, pixelated video game adversaries send the message that "ethnic others are bad," Wilkes says. [Link]

ORMISTON College is at the centre of what could become a landmark case over whether a school has the right to deny a student admission because his turban does not fit in with the uniform requirements.

A Sikh family, who cannot be identified due to a suppression order, has lodged a complaint with Queensland’s Anti-Discrimination Commission alleging the private school refused to admit their 12-year-old son unless he removed his turban and cut his hair.

The complaint, which was submitted last February, claims the boy was discriminated against because the school placed conditions on his enrolment that he could not comply with because of his religion.

Ormiston College headmaster Brett Webster has defended the school’s stance, telling The Redland Times the family was not discriminated against because of their religion.

“We always have and will continue to enrol people from different religious and cultural backgrounds; that’s not the question,” he said.

“The question is should the school, should every organisation, have to change their policies, have to change their rules, every time someone comes along with a different set of beliefs?”

“People can choose to make it a religious issue, for us it’s certainly not, it’s a uniform issue, it’s a school policy issue.”

The family’s lawyer, Caxton Legal Centre director Scott McDougall, disagreed.

“It’s quite clearly an issue of religion if the strict application of the rule means they can’t follow their religious beliefs,” he said.

The two parties were unable to resolve the issue at a meeting and Mr McDougall said he expected the case to be heard by the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal before September.

The family has now moved from the Redlands so the boy could attend a different private school.

Ormiston College, an independent and non-denominational school, has previously allowed a Sikh student to wear a turban as part of his uniform.

The boy attended the senior school during the late 1990s when previous headmaster David Hosking was in charge.

Mr Webster was unsure whether the uniform rules had been tightened since the other boy graduated or whether an exception had been made for him, but said as headmaster he had a duty to uphold the rules that were in place when he joined the school in 2006.

“I think it’s a matter of being fair and being consistent – treating people well but recognising the fact that rules exist for a reason,” he said. [Link]

A FORUM on the Federal Government's anti-terror laws has called for a Bill of Rights to protect Australians from "creeping authoritarianism".

Almost six years after the September 11 terrorist attacks that ushered in a wave of new laws, the forum at Griffith University yesterday was told the Muslim community was now feeling the brunt of laws they felt were discriminatory.

Director of the Griffith Islamic Research Centre, Dr Mohamad Abdalla, said combating terrorism was a futile endeavour if the human rights of innocent civilians were sacrificed.

"The Muslim community feels there are two systems of justice," he said.

"It is essential for all Australians that we have a Human Rights Act that will ensure fighting terrorism without racial, ethnic or other forms of discrimination.

"Australian Muslims are not opposed to securing Australia against terrorism. They reject however being targeted and profiled because of the actions of a few. Our concerns are directed against the draconian anti-terror legislation which is turning Australia into a police state."

He said the Muslim community was living in fear and under siege, particularly following the handling of the controversial case against Dr Mohamed Haneef. [Link]