Turkey, the E.U. vs. the hijab

[Yeniceri]

An interesting account in regards to the ongoing hijab controversy, in Turkey, the Netherlands and the E.U. as a whole. When did a piece of cloth become so powerful?

 

Pay special attention to the case in the Netherlands and compare it to the E.U. Human Rights Court decision to reinforce the ban on the hijab in Turkey.

 

European Human Rights court upholds Turkish hijab ban

 

by M. S. Ahmed

(Sunday December 04 2005)

 

Since it agreed to start accession talks with Turkey in October, the European Union has been highly critical of Turkey's human-rights record, including its treatment of the Kurds, who are concentrated in the south east of the country. But, with the entry talks scheduled to last between ten and fifteen years, it is obvious that the EU does not really want Turkey as a member, although it values it as an economic and political ally – a role which is now enhanced by the West's declaration of the so-called ‘war on terrorism'. It is equally obvious that Brussels is not that interested in securing human rights for the Turkish people or enhanced political rights for the Kurds. If there is one ‘human right' – a highly dubious one in a Muslim country – that the EU is determined to uphold, it is the ‘right' of the secular political establishment to keep at bay the introduction of Islamic rule in a state that was once Islamic.

 

As far as human rights are concerned, little is more basic than the right of a Muslim girl to wear a headscarf in her own school or college – particularly since wearing a hijab does not mean covering up and hiding one's identity. But such a right is denied in secular Turkey, and the EU backs Ankara on this, as a recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights shows. On November 10, the court turned down the appeal by a Turkish medical student seeking to have the ban on wearing the headscarf in Turkish colleges overturned. According to Europe's highest human-rights court, the purpose of the restriction is "to preserve the secular character of educational institutions", adding that the ban met the "legitimate aims of protecting the rights and freedoms of others and maintaining public order."

 

The court made no attempt to conceal the fact that its decision was intended to side with the Turkish secularists against those fighting to have the ban on wearing the hijab lifted. "When examining the question of the Islamic headscarf in the Turkish context, there had to be borne in mind the impact which wearing such a symbol, which was presented or perceived as a compulsory religious duty, may have on those who chose not to wear it," it ruled. It went even further when it added that limitations on the right to wear a hijab could be "regarded as meeting a pressing social need."

 

In 1998 the vice-chancellor of Leyla Sahin's university declared that any students wearing beards and headscarves would be refused entry to classes. Her resort to the Turkish courts failed, so she appealed to Europe's top human rights court, which, not unexpectedly, also let her down by a huge majority : it reached its decision by 16 votes to one.

 

The decision is naturally not an isolated one, since it will affect not only other cases in Turkish courts but also attempts by European Muslims to introduce the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab. Some days after the court's ruling that Turkish law is consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights and with the protection of women's rights in general, a commission in the Netherlands ruled that a Muslim woman has the right not to wear the hijab. The woman in question, 32-year-old Samira Haddad, won her case against the Islamic College of Amsterdam, which insists that all Muslim women wear the hijab. The country's Equality Commission said that the college had discriminated illegally against her on the grounds of her religion.

 

But the dual ruling by the European Human Rights Court and the Netherlands' Equality Commission becomes absurd when applied to give a Muslim woman the right not to wear hijab, while denying another the right to wear it. The fact that the Islamic College of Amsterdam cannot compel Samira Haddad to wear hijab while the vice-chancellor of Leyla Salim's university can force her not to wear it, is more about secularism than about human rights. Small wonder that secular activists in Turkey and those campaigning for EU membership are celebrating both decisions, not least because this has come at a time of intense public debate about secular and Islamic issues in the country.

 

Secularists are particularly eager to exploit the decisions, and the European Commission's frequent criticism of Turkey's poor performance as far as human rights are concerned, to blame Islamic activists for the EU's obvious determination to withhold membership. But the commission – in a transparent attempt to help the secularists and to create the impression that Turkey's Islamic faith has nothing to do with the issue of membership – makes the occasional vague announcement that Ankara is beginning to comply with some membership condition or other. In mid-October, for instance, Reuters quoted it as saying that it would declare Turkey a "functioning market" in November. Since having such an economy is one of the many conditions of membership, Reuters said this would be a boost for Turkey's hopes of joining the EU. But in November the commission issued strong statements on Ankara's human-rights failures and its treatment of ‘Kurdish separatists’.

 

The Turkish government's obsession with EU membership is certainly preventing it from addressing more pressing issues, such as the Kurdish question, its relations with other Muslim countries, the need to resist the virulent war on Islam (disguised as a "war on terrorism"), and the desirability of establishing close relations with the Muslim former members of the Soviet Union, such as Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. Turkey has closer religious, cultural and linguistic ties with the new states in the Caucasus than either the US or Russia has. Yet it is those two non-Muslim countries that are competing to establish close strategic and economic relations with them, leaving Turkey out.

 

There is an encouraging sign that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, is taking the Kurdish issue more seriously since the recent fatal bombing. Erdogan convened parliament to discuss the bombing, and also paid a rare visit to the southeast of the country. But he and other leaders need to do more to settle this issue, which must never be allowed to divide Turkey, a potentially powerful Muslim country that the enemies of Islam are keen to see split up.

 

http://www.islamicity.com/m/news_frame.asp?Frame=1&referenceID=23709

[zynab]

i must that i find this incrediabelly shocking, is this actually real, u saying turkey as a muslim nation ban the wearing of hijab since when and does this apply to education institutions only

[ElPunto]

The Turkish establishment is a detestable piece of vermin - the present gov't is a little better. I have always hated their virulent self-loathing and self-flagellation as Muslims. And thinking that nothing of value is Islamic and everything of value is European. The continental Europeans are particularly hostile to Muslims and Islam, in addition to their general hostililty to non-white immigrants. So not suprised about their hypocrisy. What is unforgivable is what the Turkish establishment has done vis-a-vis Islam.

[Medley of extemporanea]

I've never met a Turk. If that is the road they have chosen, it's their loss. I pray to God that the Somali nation never abandons Islam.

[RendezVous]

:rolleyes: Is Turkey an Islamic Country?I guess not..

[Yeniceri]

^^

 

Muslims the globe over have done worse things to each other than a hijab ban can ever do. Should we also question whether or not they're Muslims as well?

 

The hijab controversy is an ideological battle compared to military and civil conflicts in Muslims nations amongst Muslims (in this context, Somalia should provide ample example).

 

Turkey remains a [secular] Muslim nation.

[ElPunto]

Originally posted by Yeniceri:

^^

 

Muslims the globe over have done worse things to each other than a

hijab

ban can ever do. Should we also question whether or not

they're

Muslims as well?

 

The

hijab

controversy is an ideological battle compared to military and civil conflicts in Muslims nations

amongst

Muslims (in this context, Somalia should provide ample example).

 

Turkey remains a [secular] Muslim nation.

I would argue that the hijab ban is in fact worse, in some ways, than killings/civil war etc. And at the very least the Turkish government can be legitimately referred to as non-Muslim since they expressly enacted something in contradiction to Islamic requirements. When you actively prevent someone from practising something that has been mandated by God - in the false name of secularism(witness other secular nations like the US/Canada who don't have this ban)then you have gone well beyond the confines of reason. Killing a Muslim is one thing - the individual who perpertrated it will get punished here or in the afterlife - but then everyone dies at some point. But preventing someone from practising their religion is much like a living death. It is worse. Just as a state that prevents Muslims from fasting Ramadan is definitely worse than a state that simply kills Muslims.

 

Personally, I have nothing but contempt for Turkish establishment and Kemal Ataturk because of this ban and their public self-loathing and self-flagellation resulting from their inferiority complex over Islam.

[Viking]

Originally posted by ThePoint:

I would argue that the hijab ban is in fact worse, in some ways, than killings/civil war etc...

The Point,

Civil war brings a lot more suffering to a people. There is...

 

-total collapse of infrastructure

-large scale poverty

-stealing

-robbing

-raping

-maiming

-children who are made orphans and left to rot

-women and men who are made widows and widowers

-famine (like in the case of Somalia)

-diseases that come with malnutrition, lack of water and a functionning healthcare service

-psycological breakdown that is brought by traumatic experiences etc etc.

 

The list is long. I find it ratehr repugnant that you can even compare the banning of a headscarf in institutions with such widespread destruction and human suffering.

[Castro]

^ He did say the ban of hijab is "in some ways" worse than killing muslims. Personally, I'd like to hear what those ways are.

[- Femme -]

I'd rather never wear hijab than be killed, thank you very much! But then again, I wouldn't be in that position. Honestly, if you feel that your religious right is being infringed upon, there is something called MIGRATION. Its recommended to migrate like the Prophet (scw) for the sake of religion. Leave the damn country and go someplace where your allowed to practice your deen to your heart's content.

 

I'm not saying its easy, in many causes it would be extremely difficult and scary prospect, but at the end of the day; there is no real excuse when your standing in front of Allah. Many move to other countries for better education, work, family etc....how many can say they did it for Islam?

 

ThePoint,

 

Pass on what your smoking, brah. By the sound of it, its real gud. .

[Cara.]

The Point,

 

There's nothing more final than death to prevent one from practicing one's faith, surely?

 

Islam itself excuses someone who claims to reject Islam out of fear for his life, and you want to put the Hijab before the sanctity of human life?

 

For Turkey to ban the Hijab is a deplorable limitation on the fundamental human right to self-expression, but surely the level of vitriol aimed at Turkey is a bit hypocritical. I know Somali Muslims who placed their hand on the Qur'an and vowed to be truthful but told ridiculous lies so they could live in America or Canada. They were not exactly in terror for their lives either. So, how much contempt should we heap on these poor misguided souls?

[Castro]

^ Just enough to make us look, and feel, better.

[Yeniceri]

I am saddened that someone actually had the audacity to claim that a hijab ban is worse than civil and military conflict in Muslim countries. Tell that to the millions of innocent dead, millions more who continue to live under oppression.

 

Originally posted by Callypso:

For Turkey to ban the Hijab is a deplorable limitation on the fundamental human right to self-expression, but surely the level of vitriol aimed at Turkey is

a bit hypocritical

. I know

Somali Muslims

who placed their hand on the Qur'an and vowed to be truthful but told ridiculous lies so they could live in America or Canada.

You're comparing State-sanctioned law that goes against Islamic doctrine (affecting the lives of all Turkish citizens) to the behavior of certain individuals you know? :confused:

[xiinfaniin]

^^@

الÙتنة أشد من القتل

@

 

Could be what he is getting at. And indeed in some ways it is worse.

[Paragon]

Don't be literalists folks. ThePoint's point, as I understand it, comes across as a metaphorical and quite useful one in standing ground against 'little' injustices. Once the Hijab's ban is demoted to a less serious position, before you know it, it creates a snow-ball effect that takes away not only rights to dress-codes, but the right to life itself. A society's independence and integrity depends on its ability to say NO to little things that may lead to bigger things. It was the Somali poet who rightly warned:

 

Hadaan dhimano Geeridu kolbey, nolosha dhaantaaye,

Dhaqashiyo marbeey kaa yihiin, dharagtu xaaraan e'

Nin dhirbaaxo ceebeed dugsadey, dhaqashadeed maalye,

Dhashaadeey sugtaa xaajadaad, dhowrataa abid e'

-Bidhiidh