Businessman Rachid Nekkaz hopes to render new law useless by paying fines for women caught wearing veil in street

A French property tycoon enraged at his government's plans to ban women from wearing the full veil in public has promised a fund of €1m (£830,000) to help any Muslim who is fined for wearing the niqab in the street.

Rachid Nekkaz, a businessman of Algerian origin who launched a short-lived campaign in the 2007 presidential elections, has already put €200,000 into a bank account aimed at bailing out women who find themselves on the wrong side of the new law.

He insists that the ban, which was approved by the lower house of parliament on Tuesday and is set to be ratified by the senate in September, is "anti-constitutional" and a move that could put France on a slippery slope towards greater intolerance.

While he has no problem – like most of the French population – with an idea initially mooted by MPs of banning the full veil in state areas such as town halls and post offices, he is vehemently against a law that applies to women simply walking down the street.

"I am very, very sensitive to when people start playing around with institutions and the constitution. I was not shocked by the idea of a ban in public services; I am a [French] republican. But when I saw the president – the guarantor of the constitution – announcing a ban in the street I said to myself, 'this is serious'".

Nekkaz, who says his fund received €36,000 in donations in the 24 hours following its announcement and hopes it will reach €1m by September, is selling properties in the Parisian suburbs to keep the money coming in.

Under the planned law, any woman found wearing a face-covering veil anywhere in public faces a possible fine of €150 as well, potentially, as a course in "citizenship". However, if she has been fined for wearing the garment in the street, she will be able to pay the charge from Nekkaz's fund. The law, he hopes, will be made "inapplicable".

"I think this would never happen in the United States or the United Kingdom … France is a country which is not scared to compromise its principles," he said.

Nekkaz, a Muslim, is not the only one to have raised concerns about the viability of the law, due to come into full effect by spring next year. France's constitutional watchdog has twice warned that it could be found to infringe personal freedoms.

One of the things I was so impressed with about Lawrence in Winter’s Bone is that Hollywood is always trying to cram this “tough, hot chick” character down our throats. It’s kind of a response to the old “why do women only get to be damsels in distress?” criticism. Now that they’re aware of that, they do this thing where the female lead in an action movie has to say “the thing about my character is, she’s actually really tough!” Only it’s still pretty much the same old damsel in distress, only now, instead of a demure nightie, she’s wearing leather and angry stripper clothes and occasionally punches people. It’s still just as offensive, only now it’s wholly unbelievable too. Anyway, Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone is one of those rare instances of a female lead actually being tough in a non-bullsh*t way. AND she’s hot, so there’s that.

I know, it sounds like boring-festival-movie-by-numbers.  It’s not, I promise.  It will take you to the woods, get you drunk on moonshine, and rape you in the drama hole.
...
Winter’s Bone knows that the quickest way to this reviewer’s heart is with a big f*cking chainsaw.
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If anyone in Hollywood does see it, Jennifer Lawrence is going to be a big star. 19 years old and all soft features, she manages to play Ree with genuine toughness and a sex appeal that comes through without her being tarted up like a common whore (not that there’s anything wrong with that), or playing that phony seductress character that’s so popular. She is the real deal. She charmed my pants off. Literally.
...
She played a 16-year-old in the film, but as I told the other movie goers who acted really immature about me wanking, she’s 19 in real life. Not only that, but she’s a good actress. And I mean like an actual acting actress, not just a hot chick who can smile while she deep throats a banana and Michael Bay sprays whipped cream on her crotch (though that is a skill).

atheism

Wait a moment, isn't the book Pat is pimping published by the ultra right wing WorldNetDaily (WND) Books of "911 truth" and "Birthers" fame?

Oh dear Pat. First supporting UKIP now supporting conspiracy theorists....

I do hope he's being ironic.

"What they want to do is re-create the caliphate that happened . . . when they ruled the world." [Ruled the world???]  Steps include plans to throw out our government and "throw out our Constitution and force us to live under sharia law."

Councillor faces inquiry over tweet calling Church of Scientology 'stupid'

A councillor is facing a disciplinary hearing after calling the Church of Scientology "stupid" on Twitter, it emerged today.

Christian convert Rifqa Bary is refusing chemotherapy for cancer because she believes that she was cured at a faith-healing event, according to a motion in Franklin County Juvenile Court.

Rifqa was to undergo a year of chemotherapy after her cancer was surgically removed, the document filed by her parents states.

But Rifqa, who is in foster care, was taken to a faith-healing event in Youngstown a couple of weeks ago by Franklin County Children Services, without her parents' consent, according to the document.

A motion to force treatment is to be considered today in Juvenile Court.

Rifqa's attorneys, meanwhile, are asking the court to make "special findings" so that she can obtain an immigration status that will allow her to stay in the country and obtain medical care. Rifqa, a native of Sri Lanka, does not have legal status in the United States, her attorneys have said in court.

An attorney for her parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, indicated in April that the family also was pursuing immigration documentation. All parties are under a gag order and cannot comment on any aspects of the case.

Rifqa ran away from home in July 2009, saying her Muslim father would kill her for converting to Christianity. She lived with evangelical pastors in Florida before returning to Ohio to live in a foster home.

That case is to conclude next Tuesday, when Rifqa will turn 18, making her an adult.

Meanwhile, tests have determined that Rifqa has a "rare form of cancer," according to her attorneys' court filings. Her supporters have said she has uterine cancer.

It's unclear whether she is cancer-free at the moment. The Barys' attorney, Omar Tarazi, said in a motion that Rifqa will need a hysterectomy if the cancer returns.

The Barys want to force chemotherapy and are concerned that their daughter could die without treatment, Tarazi wrote....

The Barys are from Galle on the southern coast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. When Rifqa was 5 she fell on a toy airplane that pierced the cornea of her right eye. Scar tissue built up over the next couple of years. Doctors told the Barys they might have to remove the eye. So they went to New York in 2000 for medical treatment,

Under Sharia, Islamic law, the punishment for apostasy is death — and throughout the world, many apostates from Islam are indeed murdered by Islamic extremists.

The Christian right, including clownish Catholic League President Bill Donahue, is incensed over Gossip Girl star Taylor Momsen’s admission that she masturbates with the aid of a trusty vibrator, she calls her “best friend.” Donahue condemned the use of a “dildo” as evidence of “insanity.” And the leader of a biblical parenting group declared that Momsen’s solo performances would doom her to a life of failure. And Foxnews.com wonders if Momsen’s “newfound notoriety” will destroy her career. Hmm–by this reasoning, does that mean only non-masturbating Christians are successful and sane? The mind reels.

“In my way of raising daughters, she shouldn’t be involved with ‘men’ and any of these men who have driven her to sexual boredom belong locked up because our society says men having sexual encounters with those under the age of consent are criminals.”

...and now we have Taylor Momsen prancing around with a dildo in hand. Looks like this gal’s got lots of issues. No wonder she voiced her insanity in a magazine called Disorder.”

So why do some groups keep condemning efforts to improve and normalise sex education? Why don't they applaud the move to bring education into a safe classroom environment conveyed by teachers or parents rather than leaving it to nuggets whispered by the know-it-all kid in the playground?

It seems obvious to me. What so-called family campaigners' want to teach children about their bodies and sex is shame. Shame explains the thinking that there's something inappropriate and "wrong" for a child to know the correct word to describe a part of their body. That knowing the correct words indoctrinates an attitude of free and easy sexuality. That it sullies their pure souls to know how babies are made and to explain what they can see the cow and the bull doing in the field.

A few years ago I wrote a piece for Seventeen magazine called Vagina 101 that answered the real questions young girls had about their bodies: what should I look like? Should I shave my hair? What's a clitoris and where is it?

It was refreshing to interview highly respected doctors who robustly argued that girls and parents should get over their phobias. "The vagina is no different from an ear or a nostril. It's just a place that's part of us," one said.

The piece won an award, but one chain of grocery stores pulled it from the shelves. Some parents had complained about the "graphic" nature of the medical illustrations and descriptions. They likened it to pornography. One mother of a 17-year-old told a local reporter, "It's dirty. It's dirty."

I don't care what the atheist community thinks of me. In fact, I don't care so much that I'm going to make a video saying how much I don't care, and post it to a high-traffic site within the atheist community. That's how much I don't care.

See? This is me not caring.

Peace.

[Recent video responses to Pat Condell] usually have [a] few fairly similar points in common.

- That he is supporting an ultra-right wing bill in the US to ban a muslim community center 2 blocks from ground zero.

- That he is recommending a book published by a fundamentalist christian news organisation with an awful track record.

- That he has used thouroughly debunked statistics on muslim birthrates as evidence for the "islamization of europe".

- That he is old.

Nobody, even his detractors, could seriously argue that Pat Condell is incapable of articulating his thoughts. So it begs the question, why did he choose to discuss only these peoples conclusions and not discuss any of the points they brought up, which have led them to the same conclusion? Especially when it obviously be a far more effective way of refuting it than merely asserting that he is not a bigot, and then childishly pronouncing that, anyway, he doesn't care.

Pat if you’re reading this (and I hope you are), you would not know what freedom meant if it jumped up and hit you on your ‘little white Britain’ UKIP supporting noggen.
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-when we come up with superficial critiques of the islamic world, some of the arguments might end up being used by christians to justify blind hate and violence... which defeats the purpose; there needs to be more essence and quality in the arguments.
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Sadly, I'm one of those who finds Pat is starting to come across like the BNP with O Levels. His stuff is more or less Melanie Philips-lite. While there's clearly evidence that some anti-democratic stuff is being pushed by Islamic groups, much is just made up by the UK press, and Pat swallows this Daily Mail rubbish uncritically. If viewing the Mail sceptically makes me "PC", so be it. (This comment is from Atheist Media Blog)
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Seems to me that the atheists that Pat is complaining about are those who don't share his 'the muslims are coming to get me' paranoia.
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i think it would be best for the integrity of this site to stop spreading pat condell's xenophobic propaganda. i think it would be a shame for anyone to google "pat condell" and find a link to the richard dawkins website. it gives him way too big a platform, and sullies what richard dawkins has been fighting for.

"He appears to be attacking the modern cultural relativist hard left, who are organised under the auspices of groups like Unite Against Fascism. "

"There is also the problem that Pat Condell is being castigated for reasons unconnected to his message...i.e. UKIP and WNP."

This is what Pat does every time he speaks out against the extremist, xenophobic Islamic communities. The resemblances between Islamic and Nazi totalitarianisms are quite striking.

As for right-wing, this is a commonly mis-applied pejorative, often used against any group that questions the left/liberal agenda. The EDL has recently demonstrated against the Islamization of Britain in an explicitly non-racist, peaceful way. Yet within weeks of their formation the anti-EDL UAF appeared and has been accusing the EDL of far-rightism and racism ever since. It appears to be an organised rather than a merely reflex kind of response. Anyhow, the term 'far-right' refers to a kind of 'laissez-faire' capitalist view; nothing to do with Islam/isation or immigration.

You can call Pat whatever you like for joining forces with right wing Christians and Jews against Islam when it suits him, but we all make alliances of circumstance in the face of what we see as a greater threat.  The ones who don't will find that they lose almost every time.(This comment is from Atheist Media Blog)

Ah, the Tabloids, bless them!



Some weeks ago I tried to explain to an American blogger the hierarchy of the British press in terms of political leaning, bias and reliability. I don't particularly have a problem with political bias, after all there is more than one perspective on party politics and so, armed with the knowledge of the editorial stance of these papers, I would have no problem reading The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian or the Independent and their Sunday editions. I would join many people in describing these papers as the "quality" press.

It is below these - often well below these - that the problems start and I often berate my students for their lamentable knowledge of current affairs.

Do you read a newspaper?

All too often the answer is in the negative. Those whose parents do regularly buy a national daily or Sunday edition tend to go largely, it seems, for the tabloids. They express amazement when I tell them that I can predict what party their parents vote for and what stance they will take on a variety of current issues based on their newspaper of choice. I have always been right. Too often in the classroom I can hear their parents talking and talking through the headlines and editorial position of their newspapers.

My response to my American friend arose out of trying to make a comparison between British and American news outlets. The same rule that I apply to my pupils can be applied to American bloggers in their choice of which British papers they cite in support of their position. If I see a Daily Mail article used as evidence against global warming, for instance, or The Star cited in a diatribe against Islam as another example I can safely assume I am dealing with a Republican.

At risk of upsetting many British newspaper readers (including my mother who reads the Daily Mail - for the crossword allegedly) I try to point out that these and the Sun, The News of the World, the People and the Daily Express are not good or credible sources of objective information. The comparison to Fox News springs to mind. Objectivity is not the primary objective and, after all, why let factual inaccuracy and downright misinformation get in the way of a good journalistic rant?

I have become increasingly aware of the liberties some of our media outlets take with the truth of late, particularly following one episode of Radio 4's The Now Show. See this recent post

This morning on the Sunday Programme (thank you God for BBC Radio 4) there was an interesting article on a youth camp for British Muslim teenagers which has the aim of turning Muslim youth from Islamist extremism. The camp is run by Dr Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, who has written a 600 page Fatwa against terrorism and suicide bombing. Sadly none of the usual suspects feels that this is a story worthy of publishing.

What we have had recently are headlines like This Note the phrase The Muslim Council of Britain confirmed that music lessons are likely to be “unacceptable” to 10% of Muslims. Now not only does the Star not specify that the Muslim Council of Great Britain does not support the view, but it pointedly says nothing about the 90% of Muslims who have no problem with it. Good grief, if only 10% of Christians I have met belonged to the lunatic fringe I'd think the rapture was due.

And then you get the story at the top of the post - no not Naomi (don't get me started on that empty headed princess!). This is the story where British children are being forced to eat Halal meat. Where to start? All meat is slaughtered. If you don't like this fact you are probably already a vegetarian. If you eat meat you probably couldn't tell whether meat was slaughtered according to Halal, Kosher or other means. If you're a meat eater you're a meat eater. What on earth do people think Halal meat is, something sacrificed to Satan and dipped in the blood of Christian virgins?

But look at the wider implication: Muslims aren't British, not properly. This will come as a surprise to my Muslim friends. (Actually, it won't, more's the pity.) It is also supposed to be clear that there is an Islamisation of Britain because of those uppity Muslims. The problem with this story is that it is simply not true. According to The BBC Harrow Council is giving the choice to serve Halal meat to its primary schools. See also The Harrow Observer. The Star however asserts that all High Schools have been told to provide only Halal meat.

You might also like This one

Then we get organisations like Islamisationwatch which exist because of the sorts of things the tabloid press write. One feeds off the other in a cycle of suspicion and fear. It should make us angry and it should make us campaign for an honest press.

The slow, whiny death of British Christianity

Posted by Johann Hari 

And now congregation, put your hands together and give thanks, for I come bearing Good News. Britain is now the most irreligious country on earth. This island has shed superstition faster and more completely than anywhere else. Some 63 percent of us are non-believers, according to an ICM study, while 82 percent say religion is a cause of harmful division. Now, let us stand and sing our new national hymn: Jerusalem was dismantled here/ in England's green and pleasant land.

How did it happen? For centuries, religion was insulated from criticism in Britain. First its opponents were burned, then jailed, then shunned. But once there was a free marketplace of ideas, once people could finally hear both the religious arguments and the rationalist criticisms of them, the religious lost the British people. Their case was too weak, their opposition to divorce and abortion and gay people too cruel, their evidence for their claims non-existent. Once they had to rely on persuasion rather than intimidation, the story of British Christianity came to an end.
 

Now that only six percent of British people regularly attend a religious service, it's only natural that we should dismantle the massive amounts of tax money and state power that are automatically given to the religious to wield over the rest of us. It's a necessary process of building a secular state, where all citizens are free to make up their own minds. Yet the opposition to this sensible shift is becoming increasingly unhinged. The Church of England, bewildered by the British people choosing to leave their pews, has only one explanation: Christians are being "persecuted" and "bullied" by a movement motivated by "Christophobia." George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, says Christians are now "second class citizens" and it is only "a small step" to "a religious bar on any employment by Christians".

Really? Let's list some of the ways in which Christians, and other religious groups, are given special privileges every day. Start with the educational system. Every school in Britain is required by law to make its pupils engage every day in "an act of collective worship of a wholly or mainly Christian nature". Yes: Britain is still a nation with enforced prayer. The religious are then handed total control of 36 percent of our state-funded schools, in which to indoctrinate children into their faith alone.

These religious schools, paid for by you and me, are disfiguring Britain. I know one reason I grew up without the prejudices of some of my older relatives was because I went to school with kids from every conceivable ethnic and religious group, and I could see they were just like me. A five year old will make friends with anyone, and he'll be much less likely to believe smears against those friends for the rest of their lives. But in Britain today, that mixing is happening less and less. Increasingly, the children of Christians are sent to one side, Jews to another, Muslims to another still, and they never see each other except from the window of their parents' cars. After the race riots in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley in 2001, the official investigations found that faith schools were a major cause.

So why keep them? Their defenders say these schools perform better in exams - and at first glance, it seems to be true. On average, they get higher grades. But look again. A number of studies, including by the conservative think thank Civitas, have blown a hole in this claim. They have proven that faith schools systematically screen out children who will be harder to teach: children from poor families, and less bright children. Once you look at how much a school improves the pupils it actually admits, the only real measure of a school's success, it turns out faith schools do less well than other schools - which isn't surprising given they waste so much time teaching them crazy nonsense like Virgin births and Noah's Ark. The British people instinctively know all this: 64 percent want every state school to be neutral when it comes to religion.

Special rights for the religious don't stop at the school gates. They automatically get 26 unelected bishops in the House of Lords. Public broadcasters are required by law to give them large amounts of money and time to screen religious propaganda. Jews and Muslims are allowed to ignore the laws on animal cruelty and engage in the barbaric practice of slitting the throats of live animals without numbing them in order to create kosher and halal meat.

And it seems that, in crucial cases, religious figures are virtually exempted from the law. There is now overwhelming evidence that Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope, was involved for over twenty years in an international criminal conspiracy to cover up the rape of children by priests in his Church. (Check out the superb edition of the BBC's Panorama, 'Sex Crimes and the Vatican', for the evidence.) But when he arrives in Britain in September, our politicians will fawn over him, rather than dialling 999.

Given all this unearned privilege, how can Christians claim they are in fact being "persecuted"? Here are the cases they offer as "proof". A nurse called Shirley Chaplin turned up to work wearing a crucifix around her neck. Her hospital told her that they were worried the elderly and confused patients she worked with could grab at it, so they said she could pin the crucifix to her uniform instead if she liked. That's it. That's their cause celebre. Oh, and a woman called Theresa Davies who worked in a registry office, but refused to perform civil partnerships for gay couples, so... she was moved to working on reception.

In response, Carey and the CofE demand Christians be allowed to break the law requiring them to treat gay people equally when providing a service to the general public - and that any case where a Christian feels discriminated against should be judged by a special court of "sensitive" Christians. If we started allowing religious people to break basic anti-discrimination laws, where would we stop? Until 1975, the Mormon Church said black people didn't have souls. (They only changed their mind the day the Supreme Court ruled this was illegal, and God niftily appeared to their leader that morning and announced blacks were ensouled after all.) Would we let a Mormon registrar refuse to marry black people? Would it be "Mormonophobia" to object?

When Lord Chief Justice Laws, who is a Christian himself, ruled the exemptions demanded by Carey would be "irrational, divisive, and arbitrary", he threw an extraordinary tantrum and said Christians might begin to engage in "civil unrest". When I saw Carey make these threats on television, red-faced and rageful, it made me think of a nasty child in the playground who had been beating up the gay kids and spitting at the girls for years and is finally told to stop - only to start bawling that he's the one who is being picked on.
As their dusty Churches crumble because nobody wants to go there, the few remaining Christians in Britain will only become more angry and uncomprehending. Let them. We can't stop this hysterical toy-tossing stop us from turning our country into a secular democracy where everyone has the same rights, and nobody is grantedspecial rights just because they claim their ideas come from an invisible supernatural being. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Holy Lamb of God to carve into kebabs - it's our new national dish. Amen, and hallelujah.

Don’t let the burka stifle free speech

Tuesday 10 August 2010
I’ve been arguing for ages that the burka is a ridiculous garment, but that it shouldn’t be banned. Now Richard Dawkins is saying pretty much the same: in an interview with Radio Times he says he feels ‘visceral revulsion’ when he sees the ‘full bin-liner thing’.

Fair enough. He’s entitled to his opinion and he’s not calling for it to be outlawed, as several European countries are proposing. Inevitably, though, he’s been accused of ignorance – a curious charge when I have Muslim friends who are just as scathing about the burka; they call women who wear it ‘ninjas’ – and Islamophobia.

I’m not surprised. Dawkins describes the burka as ‘a symbol of the oppression of women’ but I’d go further than that. It’s a symbol of an authoritarian ideology which seeks not just to hide women but to silence critics of religion. Like me, Dawkins is an atheist, a rationalist and a supporter of human rights. One of the most important is free speech, and that includes our right to say what we like about absurd forms of religious dress.
(Article from "Political Blonde")

Richard Dawkins causes outcry after likening the burka to a bin liner

The 69-year-old author and Oxford academic said he is filled with “visceral revulsion” when he sees women wearing the traditional Islamic covering.

But he held back from advocating a ban on the all-enveloping cloak, insisting that such legislation would fly in the face of Britain’s liberal tradition.

Professor Dawkins referred to the burka as a “full bin-liner thing” in an interview with the Radio Times in which he discussed his forthcoming documentary on the dangers of faith schools.

He has sparked fury among Muslim groups, who have accused him of being “ignorant” and “Islamophobic”.

But he stood by his remarks last night, telling the Daily Mail: “I do feel visceral revulsion at the burka because for me it is a symbol of the oppression of women.”

But he added: "As a liberal I would hesitate to propose a blanket ban on any style of dress because of the implications for individual liberty and freedom of choice."

Last month the French government voted to ban the burka from public places. It also banned the niqab – a piece of cloth covering the face.

Seyyed Ferjani, of the Muslim Association of Britain, accused Professor Dawkins of “Islamophobia”.

She said: “This kind of thing has been on the rise for some time. Britain is a diverse and free society.

“It is a woman’s choice if she wishes to wear a burka, a niqab or not. Why does it matter to this man what a woman is wearing?”

In Faith Schools Menace? on More4 next week, the Oxford University evolutionary biologist argues that religious schools are encouraging social segregation.