Category: Politics

Hijab not Tunisian enough?

Via Islamophobia Watch, the Boston Globe reports that the Tunisian "religious affairs minister", Aboubaker Akhzouri, has claimed that the hijab worn by religious Muslim women does not "fit in with the North African country's...

From Prince Charles to King George?

The Times and the BBC report that Prince Charles is considering taking the name George when (or rather if) he becomes king. The Times' headline is the rather amusing "Call me George, says Charles",...

“Orthodoxy” on evolution

Guardian Unlimited: The question Tim Radford presents the "orthodox" view on why there really is no doubt about how we came to be here – namely that primitive life forms became vertebrates which became...

Chechen mass illness psychological?

Perhaps it is as they say. But are they sure it's nothing to do with that radiation being released from a Grozny nuclear power plant? BBC NEWS: "Psychology" clue to Chechen ill

Williams and Carey on Christmas

The Daily Telegraph reports on comments by Rowan Williams and George Carey (respectively, the current and previous archbishops of Canterbury) defending Christmas against these misguided "false accommodations" involving removing explicit mention of Christmas and...

Amir Butler on Sydney riots

Br Amir Butler has provided his own account of the recent riots in Sydney. To my knowledge, this is the first Muslim blog account of the incidents (surprisingly, Irfan Yusuf doesn't seem to have...

Bigots’ friend back in shadow cabinet

The BBC is reporting that Boris Johnson, the former editor of the Spectator who allowed the brazenly unbalanced analysis of the July bombings and French riots to appear on his watch has been given...

Cameron wins, and Tory anti-ID pieces

Well, I have to say I'm guardedly optimistic about David Cameron winning the Conservative Party leadership election. When I saw David Davis' campaign page, I saw the complaint about foreigners taking up room in...

Niqabs and hoodies

The London Evening Standard today printed a letter from one Papya Qureshi of west London, a Bengali Muslima "who has been taught to dress modestly": I have lost track of the names of clothes...

Observer on niqab

The Observer had a story on the front page of its review section last Sunday on niqab, the face veil worn by some Muslim women. The Big Cover-Up fails to ask the obvious question...

Why David Davis disappoints

The Conservative Party here in the UK is in the final stages of its leadership election: of five candidates available to the party's relatively small group of MPs, the membership have until early December...

Euro court rejects Turkish headscarf appeal

This just in from the BBC: Turkey can ban Islamic headscarves in universities, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. The court rejected an appeal by a Turkish woman who argued that the...

In defence of British time

Today was the last day of British Summer Time, by which for seven months of the year, the British call midnight 1am and noon 1pm. For the five months from the end of October...

Brazilians see sense

As a geek I've got a soft spot for Brazil, which is one of a handful of third-world countries which is at the forefront of open-source software adoption. This is mostly due to most...

Dutch tolerance

In today's Times, it's reported that Rita Verdonk (what a name!), the "hardline" integration minister of the Netherlands, has told the country's Parliament that "she was going to investigate where and when the burka...

Blair to ban public smoking at last

No, he's not talking about banning it altogether – just about places where people eat, according to a report in today's Observer. And for once I've got something good to say about the present...

Darfur “not genocide”

A day late, I know (following a reminder and some new info on Lenin's Tomb): Jonathan Steele commented in the Guardian yesterday that the UN secretary-general has published a report that "attacks the government...