Beyond the pale on the veil

[Christa]

Should Canadian colleges be more tolerant of Islamic fundamentalism than Cairo's universities?

There should be a limit to accommodating religious minorities, and that limit has been reached. An Egyptian-born woman wearing a niqab – the veil that hides the face except for the eyes – was expelled from a French-language class for immigrants in Montreal after all conceivable efforts had been made to try to accommodate her beliefs.

Naima Ahmed, a 29-year-old pharmacist and mother of three, reportedly refused to lift her veil to reveal her mouth when pronouncing words, something that's part of language instruction. She demanded to sit at the back of the room, with her back to the other students, because three males were in the class. Later, she insisted the men move even farther away from her.

For one-on-one exercises, the woman first agreed to retreat to a corner with the female instructor so she could remove part of her veil but then changed her mind when she couldn't be guaranteed that the instructor responsible for the next segment would be a woman. Another part of the course calls for students to sit around a U-shaped table and converse; the woman refused to participate because she couldn't tolerate the male students looking her in the eyes. (Ms. Ahmed has denied the allegations that she refused to work with men.)

These frictions – which exasperated the other students and disturbed the atmosphere of the class – went on for three months until the college, CEGEP de Saint-Laurent, backed by Quebec's Immigration Ministry (which finances the language classes), gave her an ultimatum: Take off the veil or quit the class. She quit, then filed a human-rights complaint against the province.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/beyond-the-pale-on-the-veil/article1491762/

[HopeHoops]

1. I have to wonder. If she got arrested, how would they handle the mug shot?

:shrug:

[HeresyLives]

2. For years we have allowed Hutterites,

a communal religious group, not to have photo ID.

Trouble is when you get into stuff like this, what applies to one applies to all.

[Deep13]

3. It's a classroom, not a mosque (or a church or whatever.)

If I were one of the men in that class, I would object to being moved around just to accomodate someone's unreasonable expectations.