Muslim woman denied access to court for scarf

[THE KOD]

Muslim woman barred from Georgia courtroom for wearing scarf

Published on: 07/01/07

VALDOSTA ? A Muslim woman seeking to contest a simple speeding ticket in this south Georgia city says she was denied access to a municipal courtroom last week for wearing a traditional Islamic head scarf.

Aniisa Karim, 20, said she was stopped after entering Valdosta's municipal court building Tuesday and told she would not be permitted to enter the courtroom wearing her scarf.

"I said, 'No, I'm Muslim ... I wear this for religious reasons and if you don't allow me in the courtroom with my scarf on basically you are violating my civil rights and my right to a free religion,' " Karim told the Valdosta Daily Times.

Karim said an officer told her the denial was due to "homeland security reasons" and that allowing her to enter would show disrespect to Judge Vernita Lee Bender.

She said she offered to walk through a metal detector and allow officers to use a handheld metal detector to scan the scarf.

A national Islamic civil rights group has taken up the case. In a letter to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, the Council on American-Islamic Relations asks Baker to "take appropriate action to ensure that the legal, religious and civil rights of Georgians of all faiths be maintained."

Baker's office and the Valdosta municipal court were unable to be reached by The Associated Press for comment on Sunday.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington D.C.-based group, said neither Baker's office nor the Valdosta city attorney had responded to his group as of Sunday afternoon.

The letter from CAIR argues that barring Karim from the courtroom violated Georgia's code of conduct for judges and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which guarantees access to public facilities based on religious beliefs or practices.

Meanwhile, Karim said she decided to not challenge the speeding ticket and pay a $168 fine since that didn't require her to enter the courtroom.

"I feel like in the year 2007 things like this should not happen any more," Karim said. "Of course everyone doesn't know everything about different religions, but if I tell you, 'I'm Muslim this is a part of my religion,' I feel like if you are a public officer you should be educated enough to know."
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maybe she should go to afghanistan or Iran where she would be more accepted.:SIB

 

[smurphy]

"I feel like in the year 2007 things like this should not happen any more,"

She's right - it's 2007 and she shouldn't be covering her face in public.

 

[Pujo21]

Well said Scott...... Thank you


I wonder if she took her driving lessons at The Louis X. School of Hatred . ?

 

[Kramer]

We should have put 20 foot walls around all our
borders 20 years ago and told the rest of the
world to F$CK OFF. We'd be shitin in tall cotton
and the rest of the world would be extinct.
Of course I've been drinking a little bit today so
the above opinion does not necessarily represent
the truth. :142smilie :142smilie :142smilie

 

[THE KOD]

For me, the burkha represents a woman's consecration to her husband and family. Only they see her.

It affirms the privacy, exclusivity and importance of the domestic sphere.

The Muslim woman's focus is her home, the "nest" where her children are born and reared. She is the "home" maker, the taproot that sustains the spiritual life of the family, nurturing and training her children, providing refuge and support to her husband.

In contrast, the bikinied American beauty queen struts practically naked in front of millions on TV. A feminist, she belongs to herself.

In practice, paradoxically, she is public property. She belongs to no one and everyone. She shops her body to the highest bidder. She is auctioning herself all of the time.

In America, the cultural measure of a woman's value is her sex appeal. (As this asset depreciates quickly, she is neurotically obsessed with appearance and plagued by weight problems.)

As an adolescent, her role model is Britney Spears, a singer whose act approximates a strip tease. From Britney, she learns that she will be loved only if she gives sex. Thus, she learns to "hook up" rather than to demand patient courtship and true love. As a result, dozens of males know her before her husband does. She loses her innocence, which is a part of her charm. She becomes hardened and calculating. Unable to love, she is unfit to receive her husband's seed.
.....................................................

 

[THE KOD]

 

[THE KOD]

 

[THE KOD]

 

[THE KOD]

 

[THE KOD]

'No, I'm Muslim ... I wear this for religious reasons and if you don't allow me in the courtroom with my scarf on basically you are violating my civil rights and my right to a free religion,' "

 

[THE KOD]

 

[SpursDynasty]

some of you are a bit too cynical

 

[smurphy]

We should have put 20 foot walls around all our
borders 20 years ago and told the rest of the
world to F$CK OFF. We'd be shitin in tall cotton
and the rest of the world would be extinct.
Of course I've been drinking a little bit today so
the above opinion does not necessarily represent
the truth. :142smilie :142smilie :142smilie

Thanks Raymond.

 

[DoMyDermBest]

Why don't you visit any Muslim nation holding a bible, a copy of the satanic verses, or a bottle of your favorite beverage in any hand. Lets take odds on line to see if you live to see sunset. Sorry, but I'm sick of political correctness.

 

[THE KOD]

denial was due to "homeland security reasons" and that allowing her to enter would show disrespect to Andy

 

[THE KOD]

Its not the scarfs you should be worried about infidels

 

[THE KOD]

Al Gore's Son Arrested on Drug Suspicion
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. ?

Al Gore's son was arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs after deputies pulled him over for speeding, authorities said.

Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over at about 2:15 a.m., Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said.


(enlarge photo)
Former Vice President Al Gore, second from left, and his wife Tipper arrive with their son Albert Gore III, right and daughter Karenna Gore Schiff, left, for the 79th Academy Awards Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007, in Los Angeles. Al Gore's son was arrested early Wednesday, July 4, 2007 on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs after deputies pulled him over for speeding, authorities said. Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over at about 2:15 a.m., Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
The deputies said they smelled marijuana and searched the car, Amormino said. They found less than an ounce of marijuana along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit disorder, he said.

"He does not have a prescription for any of those drugs," Amormino said.

Gore was being held in the men's central jail in Santa Ana on $20,000 bail.

Kalee Kreider, a spokeswoman for his parents, did not immediately return phone messages to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The son of the former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee also was pulled over and arrested for pot possession in December 2003, in Bethesda, Md., while he was a student at Harvard University.

He completed substance abuse counseling as part of a pretrial diversion program to settle those charges.

The youngest of Al and Tipper Gore's four children and their only son, Gore lives in Los Angeles and is an associate publisher of GOOD, a magazine about philanthropy aimed at young people.
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___

 

[THE KOD]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -Security forces besieging a radical mosque in the Pakistani capital captured its top cleric Wednesday as he tried to sneak out of the complex in a woman?s burqa, and more than 1,000 of his followers surrendered.
But heavy gunfire raged into the night, and it was unclear if his capture would lead other hard-liners to give up the fight at the mosque.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf deployed the army to subdue the militants holed up at Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, whose clerics have boldly challenged the government for months with a drive to impose a Taliban-style version of Islamic law in Islamabad.

The peaceful arrest of the mosque?s prayer leader, Maulana Abdul Aziz, was a coup for the government. The firebrand Aziz has been a vociferous opponent of Musharraf and threatened suicide attacks to defend the mosque. His thousands of male students have been at the forefront of anti-government and anti-U.S. rallies.

Tensions exploded into a daylong battle Tuesday between security forces and militant students, some heavily armed and masked. Officials said 16 people died, including militants, security officers and bystanders. Mosque leaders put the death toll among just students at 20.

The government ordered the militants to lay down their arms and surrender by Wednesday morning as it positioned armored vehicles and helicopters around the mosque in a show of strength.

A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists, said Aziz was captured when he tried to get away disguised as a woman, wearing a full-length black burqa, and a female police officer tried to search him.

The officer began shouting ?This is not a woman,? the official said, prompting male officers to seize Aziz. ?The suspect later turned out to be the mosque?s chief cleric,? the official said.

An AP Television News cameraman saw plainclothes police bundling the gray-bearded cleric into the back of a car, which sped away.
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hiding in a burka ! I think they broke his constitutional rights of freedom of his religion.

 

[THE KOD]

the old hiding in the burka caper, oldest trick in the book.

 

[THE KOD]

VRINDAVAN, India (CNN) -- Ostracized by society, India's widows flock to the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die. They are found on side streets, hunched over with walking canes, their heads shaved and their pain etched by hundreds of deep wrinkles in their faces.


A widow makes her way in Vrindavan, India, where an estimated 15,000 widows live on the streets.

1 of 3 more photos ? These Hindu widows, the poorest of the poor, are shunned from society when their husbands die, not for religious reasons, but because of tradition -- and because they're seen as a financial drain on their families.

They cannot remarry. They must not wear jewelry. They are forced to shave their heads and typically wear white. Even their shadows are considered bad luck.

Hindus have long believed that death in Vrindavan will free them from the cycle of life and death. For widows, they hope death will save them from being condemned to such a life again. Watch how some widows are rebelling ?

"Does it feel good?" says 70-year-old Rada Rani Biswas. "Now I have to loiter just for a bite to eat."

Biswas speaks with a strong voice, but her spirit is broken. When her husband of 50 years died, she was instantly ostracized by all those she thought loved her, including her son.

"My son tells me: 'You have grown old. Now who is going to feed you? Go away,' " she says, her eyes filling with tears. "What do I do? My pain had no limit."

As she speaks, she squats in front of one of Vrindavan's temples, her life reduced to begging for scraps of food.

There are an estimated 40 million widows in India, the least fortunate of them shunned and stripped of the life they lived when they were married.

It's believed that 15,000 widows live on the streets of Vrindavan, a city of about 55,000 in northern India.

"Widows don't have many social rights within the family," says Ranjana Kumari with the Center for Social Research, a group that works to empower women.

The situation is much more extreme within India's rural community. "There, it is much more tradition-bound; in urban areas, there are more chances and possibilities to live a normal life."

But the majority of India's 1.1 billion population is rural. "The government recognizes the problem," Kumari says. "It can do a lot, but it's not doing enough."

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One woman, a widow herself, is working for change. Dr. Mohini Giri has formed an organization called the Guild of Service, which helps destitute women and children.

Giri's mother was widowed when Giri was 9 years old, and she saw what a struggle it was. Then, Giri lost her husband when she was 50, enduring the social humiliation that comes with being a widow. At times, she was asked not to attend weddings because her presence was considered bad luck.

"Generally all widows are ostracized," she says. "An educated woman may have money and independence, but even that is snatched away when she becomes a widow. We live in a patriarchal society. Men say that culturally as a widow you cannot do anything: You cannot grow your hair, you should not look beautiful."

She adds, "It's the mind-set of society we need to change -- not the women."

Seven years ago, Giri's organization set up a refuge called Amar Bari, or "My Home," in Vrindavan. It has become a refuge for about 120 of India's widows. Giri's organization is set to open a second home, one that will house another 500 widows.

But as she says, "Mine is but a drop in the bucket."

At Amar Bari, most widows reject traditional white outfits and grow out their hair. Along the open air corridors that link the house's courtyard are green wooden doors, leading to dark tiny rooms, home for each widow. See the widows of Vrindavan ?

Bent over by osteoporosis, 85-year-old Promita Das meticulously and slowly sweeps the floor just outside her door and then carefully cleans her dishes.

"I came here when I couldn't work anymore. I used to clean houses," she says. "Nobody looked after me, nobody loved me. I survived on my own."

She married at 12 and was widowed at 15. Seventy years later, she finds herself at Amar Bari. "I used to live in front of a temple, but then I came here," she says.
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the people of India are something to behold.