4 Jan - USA:

Although more than one in three Muslim students said they had been hit with ethnic slurs in the past year, only one in six said it happened in school.

More than 600 students from 90 public schools participated in the three-year study conducted by Columbia University's Teachers College.

Most of the Muslim students said that although they still face bias, it has gotten better since the first few years following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Still, 36% of the students said they a faced at least one "discriminatory verbal incident" in the past year.

The study found 28% of Muslim students said they or a relative have been stopped by police as a result of "racial profiling," 12% reported they or a relative had been turned down for a job based on discrimination, 11% had property destroyed and 7% said they or a family member had been physically assaulted.

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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.

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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.

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A suburban Chicago college has stepped up safety measures after an alleged attack on a female Muslim student which officials deemed a hate crime.

Elmhurst College officials on Friday contacted Muslim students to offer safety escorts and Elmhurst police increased patrols on the nearly 3,000-student campus.

Police say the alleged attack occurred Thursday evening in a science building bathroom by a man wearing a ski mask. Authorities say they found anti-Muslim graffiti there.

Officials placed the school on lock down for an hour and ordered students to stay indoors.

Elmhurst College spokesman Charley Henderson says the student found racial slurs and a swastika earlier this month in her locker. The matter was turned over to Elmhurst police.[Link]

A Muslim student was attacked at Elmhurst College in what school officials described as a hate crime had found anti-Islamic slurs and a swastika scrawled in her locker a week earlier, police and students said Friday.

The 19-year-old sophomore told police a masked, male attacker struck her in the head with a handgun about 8:30 p.m. Thursday after she entered a restroom in the school's Schaible Science Center. She suffered a concussion.

Threatening graffiti - "Kill the Muslims" - was written on a mirror in the restroom, students and police said.

Earlier Thursday, the victim had spoken at a demonstration called to denounce the anti-Islamic slurs and swastika she had discovered Oct. 2 in her locker, school officials and students said. Among the slurs was the phrase "Die Muslims."

Both cases are being investigated as hate crimes, Elmhurst College spokesman Charley Henderson said.

"They have some common threads," Henderson said.

The victim - who wears an Islamic head scarf - and two other Muslim students had been verbally harassed and taunted Sept. 18 during a campus protest calling for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, friends said.

The Thursday night attack triggered an hourlong lockdown at the college while police searched the campus - and prompted hundreds of students to rally again Friday to protest the incident and call for unity. [Link]

A 13-year-old Sikh boy in Canada pleaded innocent to charges he threatened two classmates with a ceremonial dagger.

Appearing in Montreal Youth Court this week, the unidentified teenager said he didn't use a ceremonial kirpan to threaten two classmates in an alleged incident Sept. 11 and has asked the court to grant him a speedy trial, The Gazette said Friday.

Montreal police have accused the teen of responding to an argument with two classmates by threatening them with the religious dagger.

One of the boy's defense lawyers has accused the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school board of targeting the Cavelier de LaSalle secondary school student because of his religion.

"I'm a great admirer of Quebec, but on this issue there's dissonance. Quebec is so obsessed with kirpans. There's something unhealthy about it," lawyer Julius Grey, whose client's trial begins on Oct. 29, told the Globe & Mail. [Link]

Within a week of this new school year, fellow Muslim friends and I had already experienced a couple instances of Islamophobia. Both were derogatory slurs yelled from a moving vehicle, ensuring anonymity and suggesting cowardice....

Many of my Muslim friends can relay stories of name-calling and crude looks—and from fellow members of the Queen’s community too. Yet there is a Muslim ethos of making excuses, so these stories rarely make it out of friend circles. And although most of the cases of Islamophobia on campus have been petty, it’s important these things are acknowledged and discussed, especially if it’s going to persist.

It is thus important that opinions about a religion or religious peoples are addressed head-on so sound discussion can take place. University is not a place for censorship, but rather a place for expression and the healthy exchange of ideas and opinions. As members of this community, we are not required to agree with the customs and beliefs of others; critical thinking is, in fact, encouraged. However, mutual respect is mandatory in order for everyone to have a positive learning experience in an environment that they feel safe in. Yelling something offensive and driving away is too easy an escape. It’s time to own up to prejudices.

And the onus falls upon us, the students. We can pretend discrimination doesn’t exist, especially at an institution of higher learning. Surely everyone knows better than to associate anyone who wears a headscarf with the Taliban. Islamophobia, just like all other types of discrimination, is a thing of the past, at least for the more civilized amongst us. Unfortunate as it is though, these are real views that a minority of people on campus do indeed hold....

And although such incidents are more trivial in nature, the fact remains that there are people who feel it’s necessary to express stronger views. This past weekend, a [Muslim student organization] sign was defaced with comments that called for the death of Muslims. I can only hope incidents like this help to open our collective eyes to the larger problem. [Link]

The issue of the hijab clearly defines how modern Ireland treats its minorities. Irish Muslims deserve the right to dress how they wish and be as Irish as everyone else when doing so.

Continued official prevarication and the ill-informed criticism that has met this call is an indication that sensible social policy needs to be enacted. It seems strange that some people are so clearly offended by others' religious needs.

Modern Ireland can do better for all its citizens.

Some schools allow the hijab while others do not -- and this disparity in practice has necessitated the intervention of the Equality Authority.

Integration Minister Conor Lenihan naively states that there "are no examples of schools where it has been an issue. But there are plenty examples of where it has been accommodated," a statement that is both illogical and untrue.

There are cases of Muslim girls suffering discrimination based upon their religious dress across the country. Indeed, emboldened by Government inaction, a number of schools have explicitly banned the hijab since the new term this year and the Irish Hijab Campaign is following up on further reports....

The failure of the Government to uphold the constitutional rights of Muslims to practice their religion by legislating for the hijab -- in whatever way it manifests itself -- and mainstreaming it in Irish society, is simply a green light for the continuance of 'divergent practices' and discrimination....

The measure of a truly progressive society is how it treats its minorities. In this respect the issue of the hijab will remain.

However, let us not forget about other concerns such as burial space, prayer space, religious accommodation in the workplace, proper inclusion in the political process, the lack of Muslim schools, mosques, etc.

All of these point to inequality and must be addressed if Muslims are ever going to feel that they 'belong'.

I believe we can all build a better Ireland based on equal respect; an Ireland where we can all play a positive role. [Link]

Parents of students attending a high school in LaSalle are outraged after a 13-year-old Sikh boy pulled his kirpan on another student this week.

Montreal police say the boy became frustrated with two other students during recess on Thursday, and waved the ceremonial dagger at them in a threatening gesture.

Police have pressed charges.

In March 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Sikh students are allowed to wear kirpans to school for religious reasons. [Link]

After more than four years of refusing to deal comprehensively with bullying in schools, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced a major new initiative to combat the problem that they have minimized in the past, but now acknowledge impedes “our students’ ability to learn.”

The two officials were surrounded at a hastily called press conference on Wed., Sept. 3, by advocates of the Dignity in All Schools Act (DASA), a 2004 City Council bill that mandated most of what Bloomberg is implementing only now. He vetoed that earlier bill, dismissing it then as “silly” and “illegal,” and the Council did not take him to court after it overrode the veto, but the mayor still refused to implement the law....

[P]ressure from the Sikh Coalition may have been the key to turning it into the chancellor’s regulations announced last week. Amardeep Singh, executive director of the coalition, said a survey of 400 Sikh students in New York City Schools found 65 percent had faced bias-based harassment, such as being called “terrorist or Osama,” and that 20 percent had been “touched or hit.” The coalition demanded the regulations in a June 30 march through Richmond Hill, Queens, compelling Klein finally to promise them action.

“We made substantial progress,” Singh said. “For the necessary sea change to take place, we still have work to do.” The group wants to see public reporting by category of harassment victims, something the mayor said would be done but which Singh said is not explicit in the regulations.

Singh also said he and his group had absolutely no problem with Sikh children being taught to respect gays and lesbians.

“We believe in equality for all,” he said, decrying the idea that “anybody’s dignity would be denigrated.” He noted that two Sikh members of the Canadian Parliament voted for same-sex marriage to the consternation of Sikh leaders in India but not in their home districts. [Link]

As thousands of kids head back to New York City schools this week, the city unveiled a new plan to protect students from bullies and keep parents in the loop.

This week, middle and high school students are heading home with a "Respect for All" brochure, that teaches them what constitutes a bias-attack - which is harassment driven by prejudice.

The city announced new steps to stop the attacks, including a tracking system to monitor all reported bias incidents.

"Up till now, we really had no way of knowing if harassment in our schools was getting better or getting worse," Mayor Bloomberg said.

So starting this year, parents will be able to go on the Department of Education website, look up their child's school, and find out how many bias incidents have been reported.

Attacks in school on Sikh kids were getting so bad in parts of Queens - specifically, students getting their hair cut off, that the community held a protest rally. [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]

She spent nine weeks in isolation in a classroom, alone except for a teaching assistant, working from notes which she was instructed to copy. The school canteen was barred to her and so were its corridors whenever they were being used by other pupils.

She was not allowed to join her friends in the playground and had to be accompanied by a teacher when she went to the toilet. All because her determination to wear a metal bangle was considered by her school to be an act of defiance.

Yesterday, a high court judge ruled that the exclusion of 14-year-old Sarika Watkins-Singh from Aberdare girls' school in south Wales because she continued to wear the bracelet - a symbol of her Sikh religion - was unlawful.

Mr Justice Stephen Silber concluded the school was guilty of indirect discrimination under race relations - Sikhs are a race - and equality laws. [Link]

The opening of more Islamic faith schools should be stopped amid fears they will fuel social segregation, according to teachers.

Government plans to create more state-funded Muslim schools will divide communities along racial and religious lines, it is claimed.

They risk creating a situation similar to that in Northern Ireland where some educated teenagers fail to meet students of the opposite faith until they go to university, according to Voice, the teaching union.

In a speech to the union's annual conference next week, one teacher will claim Labour's policy to expand Muslim schools is "about trying to defend minorities".

Last year, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, pledged to remove "unnecessary barriers" to religious groups bidding to open their own schools.

He said additional money would be made available to allow the hundreds of private religious schools to convert to the state sector. The move raised the prospect of more schools for faiths including Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, which have few schools of their own, despite representing significant minority groups.

Speaking at the conference, Wesley Paxton, a further education lecturer from Hull, will say: "More faith schools in 2008 is probably going to mean more Islamic schools." [Link]

A ban on Muslim head gear in schools could spark a rift with minority communities, an intercultural affairs expert has warned.

Introducing rules against the hijab head scarf or other religious symbols is "likely to result in tension with those communities where no tension existed before," said the director of the State's advisory body on intercultural affairs, Philip Watt.

During the debate over whether Muslim pupils should be allowed wear the headscarf in State schools, Mr Watt, who sits on the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, said most schools had already found their own "sensible and sensitive compromise".

He explained that the majority of schools allowed the head scarf to be worn provided it was the same colour as the school uniform. [Link]

Protesting two recent attacks against Sikh public school students, hundreds of Sikhs, in an action organized by the Sikh Coalition and the victims’ parents, marched through Richmond Hill, the heart of the Sikh community in New York.

The protest covered a distance of 11 blocks, from the Sikh Cultural Society to Richmond High School, where one of the attacks took place earlier this month.

Traditionally, both Sikh men and women do not cut their hair for religious reasons (though that has changed in India over the last several decades).

“Kids are kids. They pick on anything. The religion requires us to stand out. They pick on things that make you stand out,” said Amardeep Singh, the legal director of the Sikh Coalition, which was founded post-9/11 to handle bias attacks against Sikhs. (Bullying of course is a widely recognized problem, that does not necessarily stop at graduation.)

There have been at least three reports of haircutting attacks against Sikh students in public schools in the last two years.

* The event which triggered today’s protest took place on June 9 when Gurprit Kaur, a student at Public School 219 in Flushing, Queens, had her hair surreptitiously cut by another student in Spanish class. The attacker had previously harassed Gurpit. “She had been taunting the victim saying, ‘I’m going to cut your brother’s ball off, referring to the top knot of hair,” said Mr. Singh. “Once we found out this incident occurred, we decided to get out in the streets.”
* On June 3, Jagmohan Singh Premi was injured after being punched in the face when another student intentionally attempted to remove his patka, a small turban, at Richmond Hill High School. He suffered a facial contusion and a possible orbital fracture of his left eye as a result of the attack, the coalition said. This attack triggered a meeting with Joel Klein, the school chancellor, who promised to create a policy to better track bias attacks.
* In May 2007, Vacher Harpal, then 15, was forced into a bathroom at Newtown High School in Elmhurst where his turban was torn off and his hair cut. Umair Ahmed, 17, was found guilty of the bias attack in March.

The coalition issued a report called “Making Our Voices Heard: A Civil Rights Agenda for New York City’s Sikhs“[pdf] earlier this year that estimated that some 60 percent of Sikh students had been the victims of harassment or violence as a result of their Sikh identity. The coalition wants the Department of Education to train teachers on the particular dangers faced by Sikh students.

Some claims of hate crimes against Sikhs, however, have turned out to be false. In Lodi, N.J. in 2004, two Sikh teenagers who told the police they were attacked by five men who yanked off their turbans and cut off their hair fabricated the story to hide the fact that they had cut their own hair, according to the police.
[Link]

THREE Sikh students have been expelled from a French school for refusing to remove turbans.
It was the first time Sikhs were forced out under a new French law banning conspicuous religious signs and apparel in the classroom, their lawyer said.

Officials of the Louise Michel high school in Bobigny, near Paris, decided to expel the three
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teenagers at disciplinary hearings ordered by a court, said lawyer Felix de Belloy.

The ruling was the latest twist in France’s effort to apply a new law banning religious symbols at public schools. The ban, which includes Islamic headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, took effect at the start of the school year.

At least eight Muslim girls have been expelled under the law. Islamic headscarves were its main target because of concerns that growing Muslim fundamentalism in France was weakening the nation’s secular roots.

Turbans were not a focus of the debate over the measure, but Sikhs later learned the head covering would also be outlawed.

The Sikh boys had been suspended since September 23 pending this week’s disciplinary hearings.

A court last month ordered the hearings to decide the fate of the boys, who had been confined to classes in a cafeteria, apart from other students, since the start of the school year.

Sikhs had asked the court to force school officials to take action by either accepting or expelling the boys.

The Sikh students had made a concession by agreeing to wear a "keski" - a smaller version of the full turban, but the disciplinary panel did not accept that offer, de Belloy said.

"I think school officials are a bit afraid that if they admit the Sikhs, then young Muslim girls would say it’s unfair," he said. "It’s not a big surprise."

For traditional Sikhs, external appearance is sacred and men and boys who practise the faith wear turbans to cover their unshorn hair. [Link]

The family of a Sikh girl excluded from school for wearing a religious bangle have asked the prime minister to intervene in the matter.

Sarika Singh, 14, and her family delivered a petition to No 10 Downing Street signed by Sikh organisations.

The teenager has been excluded from Aberdare Girls' School since November 2007 for wearing a Kara bangle.

A High Court case in London next week, challenging the school's decision, is expected to take three days.

The petition was signed by 150 Gurdwaras, Sikh meeting places, and other Sikh organisations as well as more than 70 non-Sikh bodies, including civil liberty and anti-racist groups and trade unions.

Speaking in London, Sarika's mother, Sinita Singh, said her daughter's education had been badly affected by the exclusion. [Link]

This was not a case of boys will be boys. The student who assaulted Sikh student Jagmohan Singh Premi, 18, last week at Richmond Hill High School in Queens was not playing games.

Premi's attacker wasn't just horsing around. He punched him in the face while holding a key between his knuckles, inflicting an orbital fracture and bruising. Sikhs have no doubt it was a hate crime. Certainly, it was no child's play.

"I am sad this is happening in America; I want to go to school to learn," said Premi, a shy, serious young man who wears the turban his religion prescribes for all Sikh men. The physical assault came after the attacker tried to rip off Premi's turban while he was sitting in class and, even more egregious, with the teacher in the room.

According to Amardeep Singh, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, the harassment did not begin last week.

"Jagmohan's tormentor has a long, documented history of harassing him in school, making fun of his patka [turban] and beard, and attempting to pull off his patka," Singh said.

Actually, the attacker had been suspended this year for trying to remove the Sikh teen's turban. But after he came back to school, the harassment continued unabated.

On July 16, 2007, the Sikh Coalition, an organization born after 9/11 to counter discrimination and bigotry, raised the issue of anti-Sikh harassment at Richmond Hill High School in a meeting with schools Chancellor Joel Klein. [Link]

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein vowed that he “won’t tolerate any harassment based on race, religion, or gender in our schools,” following last week’s arrest of a 15-year-old Asian student for assault on an 18-year-old Sikh classmate at Richmond Hill High School.

The assailant allegedly punched his classmate with a key held between his knuckles during class on Tuesday, June 3 according to reports.

The 15-year-old was arrested by the hate crimes division of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and charged with assault in the second degree and harassment, according NYPD officials.

Before the attack, he apparently tried to untie the patka (small turban) of the 18-year-old Sikh student, Jagmohan Singh Premi, according to the Sikh Coalition.

When Premi tried to fix his patka, the suspect reportedly punched him in the face. Premi suffered a facial contusion and a possible orbital fracture of his left eye as a result of the attack.

“I have spoken with the student and his father and assured them that this incident will be investigated and that I am committed to providing him a safe learning environment,” Klein said at a press conference on Friday, June 6, attended by the victim and the outraged Sikh community. [Link]