On February 25, 2004 the BBC News reported, "As France pushed ahead with its planned school headscarf ban, in Turkey the issue has been the subject of impassioned debate for more than 20 years. Turkey is often held up as a model of Islamic democracy. The separation of public secular identity from private religious practice is fiercely defended by the country's powerful military. It's a separation which many here...
On February 23, 2004 Hindustan Times reported, "The Sikhs and the Muslims have won their battle over a US state order against the wearing of turbans and head scarves while being photographed for driving licences.
Following a vigorous campaign by the two communities -- and a threat to file a class action lawsuit -- the Alabama state has changed its controversial rule on headgears and head...
On February 23, 2004 Yale Daily News reported that "Hartford Seminary Islamic Studies professor Ingrid Mattson discussed the role of women in Islam at a Trumbull College Master's Tea Thursday. The talk was one of several events hosted by the Muslim Students Association to celebrate Islamic Awareness Week.
MSA political action co-chair Arafat Razzaque '06 said the MSA hopes to educate the greater...
On February 20, 2004 United Jewish Communities reported on the incremental change taking place in Orthodox religious settings to gradually provide more of a voice for women. "Those changes -- and frustration with the often-slow pace of the shifts -- were discussed this week at the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance conference, held Sunday and Monday at the Hyatt Hotel over...
On February 19, 2004 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an interview with Saukville resident Sarrah Abulughod, who turned 18 last Friday, and who has been named a Girl Scout Gold Award Young Woman of Distinction, one of 10 in the nation. "Abulughod was recognized for creating and organizing a three-day forum in November 2002 called 'Confidence in Knowledge' at the Islamic...
On February 18, 2004 Muslim Wakeup! published an editorial on how Sikhs use worship space to separate men and women: "The Gurdwara is cut in two by an invisible barrier, one side for women and the other for men. Yet, there is no wall and no difference between the two spaces. This invisible line cuts the Gurdwara in half through its length, giving men and women the exact same amount of...
On February 17, 2004 The National Lawyers Guild issued a press release condemning "an apparent effort on the part of the United States Army to gather information about students engaged in a civilian academic conference. On February 9, two Army officers came to the University of Texas Law School seeking information about a conference that had been held on February 4...
On February 15, 2004 The First Amendment Center published an editorial by Charles Haynes responding to the French ban on religious symbols in the public schools. "The head-scarf issue crystallizes the European-American divide (Belgium recently followed the French lead and moved to ban head scarves in schools; Germans are debating the issue).
Most Europeans I...
On February 15, 2004 Al-Jazeera ran an Agence France Presse article that reported, "Hundreds of Egyptian women staged a sit-in at Cairo University to protest the French parliament's approval of a law banning the Muslim headscarf in state schools. Over 300 hijab-wearing students gathered on campus this Wednesday to denounce the French...
On February 11, 2004 The Huntsville Times reported that "dozens of people were expected to attend a legislative committee meeting here today to protest a Department of Public Safety order preventing Muslim women from wearing head coverings in their driver's license photos.
Farook Chandiwala, a member of the Human Rights Committee of...
On February 11, 2004 the BBC News reported, "As expected, the French parliament has voted in favour of a new law to ban the wearing of Islamic headscarves in schools. And despite mass protests by French Muslims in recent weeks, the ban won by a landslide...After months of public debate, the vote in parliament was a brief affair. Just five minutes for each party to sum up their position on this controversial new...
On February 11, 2004 JTA reported, "When Sandra Kochmann took the post of assistant rabbi at Rio de Janeiro’s largest synagogue, becoming the first female rabbi in Brazil, many Brazilian Jews dismissed her derisively as a 'Paraguayan.' In Brazil, 'Paraguayan' is commonly used to mean 'fake' due to the prodigious amount of smuggled goods, many of them knock-...
