19 Dec - Romania:

The Turkish physical trainer of Steaua Bucharest has protested to FIFA after he was fired because he's a Muslim.

Steaua owner Gigi Becali fired Yuksel Yesilova on Saturday saying he brought back luck to Steaua because of his religion.

Becali said: "Steaua is a Christian team and we had bad luck because of him. I don't want to see him here. We can't keep a Muslim in a team that has a cross on its team bus and shirts."

Yesilova said Friday he had been called by FIFA officials about his firing. His contract expired in 2010.

Link

16 Dec - Ireland:

AN under-age football club is expected to lodge an official complaint with the FAI after a 12-year-old Sikh boy was ordered to remove his turban during a game.

Karpreet Singh had worn his turban during matches without incident for four years before a problem arose during a recent schoolboy game in Co Meath. The youngster was told by the referee to remove the 'headgear' during the first half, and didn't return to the pitch for the second.

[...]

"The referee told him to remove the 'headgear'. The boy said that he couldn't expose his hair, and his teammates rallied around him."

Link

16 Dec - Europe:

A Sikh rights group asked a U.N. human rights committee on Monday to declare that France violated a student's rights by expelling him for wearing a turban and to recommend repealing the law that led to it.

France passed a law in 2004 banning children in state primary and secondary schools from wearing conspicuous religious symbols, including Muslim headscarves, Jewish yarmulkes, large Christian crosses and Sikh turbans.

Bikramjit Singh was 18 when he was expelled from school in France in 2004 for refusing to remove his turban, according to a group called United Sikhs, which held a civil rights Conference in New York near the United Nations on Monday.

Link

05 Dec - Europe:

The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed a complaint by two French Muslim girls that their school violated their freedom of religion and their right to an education. The girls were expelled after repeatedly refusing to remove their headscarves for physical education classes.

The teacher had said that wearing a headscarf was incompatible with physical education classes. The girls, Belgin Dogru and Esma-Nur Kervanci, are French nationals and were 11 and 12 respectively when they were expelled from the school in the north-western town of Flers in 1999.

Based in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday, Dec. 4 that the school's move to expel the girls was not out of line, emphasizing that the girls had been able to continue their education via correspondence classes.

Link

"Everyone has the same prejudices and negative image of Muslims and Islam," said Moroccan-born El Alaoui Talibi, 47, the mother of seven children. "When some guards see you, they see an Arab; they see you the same as if you were a prisoner."

This prison is majority Muslim -- as is virtually every house of incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country's prison system are Muslim, according to Muslim leaders, sociologists and researchers, though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country's population.

On a continent where immigrants and the children of immigrants are disproportionately represented in almost every prison system, the French figures are the most marked, according to researchers, criminologists and Muslim leaders.

"The high percentage of Muslims in prisons is a direct consequence of the failure of the integration of minorities in France," said Moussa Khedimellah, a sociologist who has spent several years conducting research on Muslims in the French penal system.

In Britain, 11 percent of prisoners are Muslim in contrast to about 3 percent of all inhabitants, according to the Justice Ministry. Research by the Open Society Institute, an advocacy organization, shows that in the Netherlands 20 percent of adult prisoners and 26 percent of all juvenile offenders are Muslim; the country is about 5.5 percent Muslim. In Belgium, Muslims from Morocco and Turkey make up at least 16 percent of the prison population, compared with 2 percent of the general populace, the research found.

Sociologists and Muslim leaders say the French prison system reflects the deep social and ethnic divides roiling France and its European neighbors as immigrants and a new generation of their children alter the demographic and cultural landscape of the continent.

French prison officials blame the high numbers on the poverty of people who have moved here from North African and other Islamic countries in recent decades. "Many immigrants arrive in France in difficult financial situations, which make delinquency more frequent," said Jeanne Sautière, director of integration and religious groups for the French prison system. "The most important thing is to say there is no correlation between Islam and delinquency."

But Muslim leaders, sociologists and human rights activists argue that more than in most other European countries, government social policies in France have served to isolate Muslims in impoverished suburbs that have high unemployment, inferior schools and substandard housing. This has helped create a generation of French-born children with little hope of social advancement and even less respect for French authority.

"The question of discrimination and justice is one of the key political questions of our society, and still, it is not given much importance," said Sebastian Roche, who has studied judicial discrimination as research director for the French National Center for Scientific Research. "We can't blame a state if its companies discriminate; however, we can blame the state if its justice system and its police discriminate." [Link]

By staff writers
19 Jan 2008
Sikhs from across the world will be joining in moral and practical support of a peace march in New Delhi, India, today to protest against a French secularity law that bans the wearing of sacred turbans in schools and other work places throughout the country.
The one kilometre march from Gurudwara Bangla Sahib to Jantar Mantar, prefiguring the arrival of the controversial French president next week, will be followed by a candle light vigil.
The new law in France prohibits all “ostensible” religious articles - including the Sikh turban, the Muslim hijab, the Jewish Kippa and Christian crosses in public schools in France.
For Sikhs, the turban is one of five key symbols of their faith. For those who wear it, it is not just a head-dress but an extension of who they are as a person. It is also a willingly accepted obligation in a way that a cross, for example, is not for Christians.
Eastern Orthodox Christians wear a cross which is consecrated for them at the change of name they have through baptism, but it is usually worn under the clothing, for example.
Civil rights campaigners say that the French law is unacceptably prohibitive, and an example of "eliminative secularism" - a version of secularity which is not simply about equal treatment and the denial of privilege to any one group, religious or non-religious, but a deliberate attempt to deny any visibility to religion in public life.
The march is taking place a week ahead of French President Sarkozy’s arrival as chief guest at the 58th Indian Republic Day celebrations.
Six Sikh schoolchildren and two adults have unsuccessfully turned to the French courts for redress. They are now appealing their cases to the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
United Sikhs, a body which brings together Sikh people from the India, the USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland and elsewhere, will file for third party intervention in these cases in order to reinforce the importance of the turban to Sikhs.
The turban, they point out, poses no security threat as a Sikh is recognizable only with and because of the turban and not without it. Further it does not interfere with identification in today’s age of biometric photos.
A number of national and international Sikh organizations are participating in the march.celebration. Over 2,000 Sikh school pupils and 1,000 Sikh college students will join in the candle light vigil.
Delegates from Dharmik Ekta Mission, Shromani Akali Dal (Panthic), Shromani Akali Dal Delhi, and the International Sikh Confederation are expected to take part in the nonviolent protest.
United Sikhs aims to "recognise the human race as one" and to work with minority and underprivileged communities for empowerment, spiritual development, education and understanding.

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/6614

While most of Europe's estimated 20 million Muslims are fully integrated, law-abiding citizens with little sympathy for radical views, others are frustrated with government policies that keep them on the fringes of the mainstream. Originally from poor, rural backgrounds, a high proportion of Europe's Muslims came to the continent to labor in coal mines and steel mills during the 1960s and 1970s and remained at the bottom of the economic pile, ignored by politicians and business leaders while facing discrimination in housing, schools and labor markets.

European governments' failure to tackle these problems, combined with tough counter-terror measures and the rise of xenophobic parties, have heightened the sense of alienation felt by many Muslims in Europe. Muslims' search for refuge in conservative Islamic values has prompted friction with Europe's traditional secular liberalism and, in some cases aided by foreign-trained radical imams, created fertile ground for the spread of extremism in Islamic communities.

Europe's predicament causes concern across the Atlantic. Many US policymakers accuse EU governments of ignoring the security implications of young Muslims' radicalization and suggest that Europe could learn from America's 7 million Muslims who, measured by educational and income levels, are far more integrated than their European counterparts.

Muslim communities in the US and Europe certainly share some similarities, and a transatlantic dialogue would be useful in promoting best practices on integration. However, American and European Muslims face different challenges, reflecting their distinct composition, history and experience.

After the devastating 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, Muslims in both the US and Europe fell under close scrutiny, a condition that binds the two communities together. Muslims on both sides of the Atlantic tackle hard-line policies of suspicious governments, combat public prejudice and counter criticism of their faith as repressive and cruel. This in turn has prompted an eagerness among Muslims in both the US and Europe to assert their "Islamic identity." Despite pressures to conform to Western appearance and values, women in both communities increasingly wear headscarves, and a growing number of young adults attend mosques. In addition, US policy in the Middle East is a constant, painful irritant for Muslims of both continents.

Despite their common struggle against prejudice, however, US and European Muslims live in two markedly different worlds, largely because of income. Most American Muslims are well-educated, affluent and politically active. “They are better off than the average US citizen,” notes Philippa Strum of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. Almost 60 percent are college educated, 52 percent have an income of $50,000 or more and 82 percent of those eligible say they are registered to vote. In contrast, “Muslims in Europe belong to the underclass of Europe,” says Jocelyn Cesari, an expert on Islam in Europe.

Savvy American Muslims are way ahead of their European co-religionists in terms of social standing and political clout. More active as a community, they have access to enlightened leaders and engaged in energetic, often heated debate on reconciling Islam and modern America. As a result, they’re better equipped to fight discrimination and gain respect as a minority.

America's tradition of embracing immigrants has made it easier for the diverse Muslim community – including Arabs, South Asians as well as white and African-American converts – to become part of a vast melting pot of religions, cultures and ethnic groups. Europe's small, culturally homogenous nations still find it difficult to extend a warm welcome to immigrants who, for their part, tend to retain native languages and customs, clustering in small enclaves with compatriots.

Respect for minorities is just climbing up the EU's political agenda. The German government for decades treated its 3 million Turkish population as “guest workers” requiring no special attention and expected to return home. When disaffected young African and Arab youths in France took to the streets in the “banlieues” of Paris in summer 2005 to protest unemployment and discrimination, President Nicolas Sarkozy, then the country's interior minister, denounced them as “racaille,” or “scum.” A limited outcry met his comments. Anti-immigrant rhetoric is also the norm in once-tolerant Dutch and Danish societies.

For many Muslims, practicing their faith is easier in the US than in Europe. More religious than mainly secular Europeans, Americans are less uneasy about public displays of faith and religious symbols like headscarves, banned in French state schools and some German regional government offices. The debate over the role of women in Islam raging among US Muslims – with some women fighting segregation in mosques and using faith-based arguments to reclaim women's rights – has yet to reach Europe.

While starting to group together on a national level, Muslims in Europe have yet to forge an EU-wide alliance to match the clout of pan-American organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America, headed by Canadian-born Ingrid Mattson, or the Council on American-Islamic Relations. American Muslims may feel targeted by the October 2001 Patriot Act, which increased power of law-enforcement agencies to fight terrorism, but organizations lobbying for Muslims and other professional and civil-liberties groups ensure that Muslims have no need to withdraw from the mainstream.

Most significantly, under the watch of moderate, thoughtful religious and community leaders, American Muslims show little sympathy for radical views. In contrast, European security services have identified mosques as central in the spread of radical Islamist ideologies and the recruitment of homegrown and foreign-born terrorists in Britain, France and the Netherlands. One problem is that EU governments have traditionally allowed Saudi Arabia and other conservative governments to fund mosques and imams in Europe, and evidence suggests that Al Qaeda recruiters infiltrated some mosques. As highlighted by a recent BBC survey, a majority of imams in Britain, from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan possess limited English and fail to provide a modern interpretation of the faith suited to a Western multicultural democracy.

Given such divides, EU policymakers and European Muslims often insist they can learn little from the US experience. Certainly, America's tradition as an immigrant melting pot cannot be transposed to Europe. As evidenced by heated EU debate on membership of mainly Muslim Turkey, most Europeans are also unlikely to lose their chronic fear of Islam.

But to avoid further alienation and violence, EU governments and Muslims in Europe must step off the beaten track and chart a new course for speeding Muslims' integration into the mainstream. This may require discussion of the so-far taboo question of affirmative action for Europe's Muslim minority. More importantly, instead of turning to Arab and other Islamic nations to discuss European Muslims, EU governments should examine how the US government, society and business tackle the challenge. [Link]