(CBC) With the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a challenge against Quebec’s controversial secularism law, Bill 21, Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland, presumed front-runners to replace Justin Trudeau, say they encourage the prime minister to follow through on his word to have […]
(Canadian Press) The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to hear a challenge of Quebec’s secularism law sets up a final legal battle between the provincial government and minority and civil rights groups — and possibly a showdown between Quebec and Ottawa. The […]
(Canadian Press) The Supreme Court of Canada will announce next week whether it will hear a challenge to Quebec’s secularism law, known as Bill 21. The groups seeking leave to appeal say they have been informed the country’s highest court is expected […]
(WBIR) The Davidson County sheriff provided a declaration in a federal lawsuit about his department’s policy surrounding arrestees who wear religious head coverings. Layla Soliz, who practices Islam, is suing Knox County and the sheriff because she said a sheriff’s office employee […]
(European Conservative) Austrian citizens’ desire for Muslims to adapt to Austrian culture is “Islamophobic,” the country’s state broadcaster has claimed. According to a recently released study by the University of Vienna, 75% of Austrians agreed with the statement that Muslims should adapt […]
(Dutch News) Council street wardens, or BOAs, should have “a neutral image” and will not be allowed to wear any religious symbols from next year, justice minister David van Weel has said in a briefing to MPs. The measure will “strengthen public […]
(Canadian Press) A national Muslim advocacy group says Montreal would send the wrong message if it takes down a welcome sign in the lobby at city hall that generated controversy because it included a woman wearing a hijab. Stephen Brown, chief executive […]
(Canadian Press) A welcome sign in the lobby of Montreal’s newly renovated city hall depicting a woman wearing a headscarf will be removed in the name of secularism, Montreal’s mayor says, following criticism that the image is offensive. Valérie Plante said during […]
(Anadolu) UN experts on Monday called on France to reverse “discriminatory measures” banning women and girls who choose to wear the hijab from doing so while playing sports. The experts said in a statement that the decisions by the French football and […]
(Radio France) France saw a drop in cases of students flouting France’s strict secularism rules, or laicite, at the start of this school year, according to the new education minister Anne Genetet, who also called for more training for teachers in how […]
(AFP) Weaving between market stalls in the working-class Brussels district of Molenbeek, Fouad Ahidar likes to remind voters he was a market vendor himself as a teenager — driving home his credentials as a people’s politician. Something of a rising star on […]
(Euronews) An 18-year-old student was taken into police custody on Monday evening after allegedly assaulting her teacher at Lycée Sévigné in the northern French city of Tourcoing. The incident reportedly happened after the teacher asked the student to remove her headscarf, as […]
(NY Post) Maybe it was lost in translation. A longtime French teacher claims the Upper East Side’s elite, all-girls Spence School fired her for giving a straightforward answer about France’s controversial hijab law — which triggered the principal’s daughter so much she […]
(Reuters) Days before the Paris Olympics began, French sprinter Sounkamba Sylla was stuck in a row with her government over the right to wear a hijab at the opening ceremony. But after a last-gasp compromise was found — in the shape of […]
(AP) French sprinter Sounkamba Sylla will be allowed to participate in the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics wearing a cap to cover her hair, an agreement reached with the French Olympic Committee after Sylla said she was barred because of her […]
(AP) French sprinter Sounkamba Sylla says she has been barred from Friday’s opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics because she wears a hijab, and the French Olympic Committee said it is working with her to find a solution that adheres to the […]
(Arab News) Amnesty International has accused France of breaking international human rights law by enforcing a ban on women competing at this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris wearing headscarves. In a report on the ban published on Tuesday, Amnesty also accused the […]
(Deutsche Welle) In 2015, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court ruled against a general headscarf ban for teachers, saying that such a ban was incompatible with the freedom of religion guaranteed in the German Constitution. Nine years later, the same court is again addressing […]
(Canadian Press) After concerns of bias raised by the Quebec government and others, a Supreme Court of Canada justice will not participate in deliberations about whether the high court will hear an appeal to the province’s secularism law, known as Bill 21. […]
(CBC) The Quebec government is requesting that Supreme Court Justice Mahmud Jamal recuse himself from hearing the challenge to the province’s secularism law because he was board president for one of the plaintiffs. In letters sent to the registrar of the Supreme […]
(AFP) Muslim voters are increasingly worried about the prospect of a far-right victory less than two weeks before France’s snap parliamentary elections, fearing the possible restrictions that could follow. For Sarah, there’s a “real risk” of seeing the National Rally (RN) win […]
(CityNews) About 71 per cent of Muslim women surveyed in Quebec considered leaving the province for work due to the [effects] of Bill 21, during the pandemic. This is according to a new study published by the National Council of Canadian Muslims […]
(AFP) President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday France needed a new debate on secularism rules that ban religious symbols from classrooms and some sports, as he sought to rally support before snap elections. “There is this feeling that secularism is not always well […]
(AFP) French Muslim basketball player Diaba Konate Tuesday said she had hoped to represent her country at the Paris Olympics but did not stand a chance because she wears a headscarf. “Despite my desire and skills, I’m … not actually allowed to […]
(CBC) One of Canada’s most prominent Muslim advocacy groups used part of its time in front of a Commons committee studying Islamophobia Thursday to attack a controversial Quebec law that bars most public sector employees from wearing religious clothing or symbols on the job. […]
(AP) Brought into the international spotlight by the ban on hijabs for French athletes at the upcoming Paris Olympics, France’s unique approach to “laïcité” — loosely translated as “secularism” — has been increasingly stirring controversy from schools to sports fields across the […]
(Brussels Times) The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that it upholds the ban on hijabs in Flemish Community secondary schools. It rejected the applicants’ complaint that the ban is incompatible with freedom of religion. The case was brought by […]
(Canadian Press) The speaker of Ontario’s legislature is allowing politicians, staff and visitors to enter the building while wearing a keffiyeh, loosening what had amounted to a ban on the scarf, while maintaining a prohibition inside the legislative chamber. Sarah Jama, who […]
(CBC) Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles has given Premier Doug Ford a deadline to step in and reverse the ban on the wearing of keffiyehs at the provincial legislature or else she says the NDP will defy the ban. In a video […]
(Christian Science Monitor) It was a Friday afternoon in October 2020, and Coralie, a junior high school French teacher at Collège du Bois d’Aulne, had just gone for a walk in the nearby woods with her dog to clear her mind before […]
(CTV) MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment which has been banned at Queen’s Park. Jama, however, refused to leave the chamber. “Sarah Jama, […]
(CTV) Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity — and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it. On Monday, Kitchener resident Beisan Zubi drove to […]
(Canadian Press) The keffiyeh took centre stage at the Ontario legislature Tuesday as protesters unfurling the scarves were ejected from the public galleries and an independent member draped one over her shoulders in open defiance of a speaker’s ban on the attire. […]
(CTV) A motion to reverse a ban on the keffiyeh within Queen’s Park failed to receive unanimous consent Thursday just moments after Ontario Premier Doug Ford reiterated his view that prohibiting the garment in the House is divisive. “We see the division […]
(CTV) Ontario Premier Doug Ford is calling on Speaker Ted Arnott to reverse a ban on keffiyehs at Queen’s Park, describing the move as “needlessly” divisive. “The decision to ban the keffiyeh was made by the speaker and the speaker alone. I […]
(Algemeiner) The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has accused the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of fanning the flames of hate and called for the firing of its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, for a recent comment he made that it was unacceptable for someone wearing […]
(Fox) The New York City Police Department defended the actions of its officers by releasing bodycam video that showed an officer gently helping a woman with her hijab after the radical anti-Israel activist claimed she was “brutalized” and her hijab was ripped […]
(Canadian Press) French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal used his visit to Quebec this week to express strong support for the province’s model of state secularism even as he claimed to abstain from weighing in on debates over the controversial policy. And despite […]
(European Conservative) The last few weeks of Ramadan and the feast of Eid-el-Fitr have been accompanied in France by an upsurge in violence and intimidation. Its targets are people accused by members of the Muslim community of not respecting the principles of […]
(CTV) The debate over the constitutionality of Quebec’s secularism law is poised to go to the Supreme Court of Canada. On Wednesday evening, the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) voted in favour of asking Canada’s top court to rule on Bill 21 […]
(Courthouse News) New York City agreed on Friday to pay a $17.5 million settlement to resolve a class-action civil rights lawsuit brought by New York women who were forced to remove their religious headscarves in NYPD mugshot photos for the department’s facial […]
(AFP) French lawmakers and officials joined dozens of people who gathered in Paris on Friday in a show of support for a school principal who resigned after receiving death threats in a hijab row. This week the headmaster at the Maurice-Ravel senior […]
(Radio France) French Education Minister Nicole Belloubet on Friday announced the creation of a national “mobile force” to be deployed to schools facing security issues. The move comes amid a spate of death threats directed at teaching staff. “This school force will […]
(AFP) Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Wednesday defended French secularism following the resignation of a Paris school principal who received death threats after asking a student to remove her Muslim veil on the premises. Attal, a former education minister, said the state […]
(Yle) The Court of Appeal in Turku has ruled that police officers were justified in their actions when they forcibly removed hijab head coverings from two female asylum seekers during an incident at a police station in the city of Hämeenlinna in […]
(WBKO) A lawsuit filed in federal court in November 2023 against staff at the Warren County Regional Jail by a Muslim woman alleging deprivation of her religious rights has taken a new turn. The lawsuit alleges the woman was made to remove […]
(Dutch News) Caretaker justice minister Dilan Yesilgöz has said she will supersede local council powers to allow city wardens to wear a headscarf or yarmulke on duty by making uniform clothing a legal requirement. The minister has issued a guideline for local […]
(CBC) The Quebec Court of Appeal has upheld the province’s controversial secularism law in a ruling on challenges to the law’s constitutionality released Thursday afternoon. The heavily anticipated judgment is 290 pages long and quashes a previous exception, made by Superior Court […]
(Global News) Nearly five years since the Quebec government implemented its secularism law, known as Bill 21, some of the province’s community groups say the legislation continues to have an impact on minority communities. The law bans certain public workers in positions […]
(WZTV) Rutherford County has settled a lawsuit filed by a Muslim woman who was required to remove her hijab for a booking photo. Sophia Johnston was booked on a charge in August of last year that has since been dismissed. During the […]
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