Hijab Event Upsets Virginia Muslims
A planned Republican event in Virginia that relates the Muslim headscarf (hijab) to terrorism is inviting the fury of US Muslims as a new example of incitement against the sizable religious minority.
"If that’s not hateful and inciteful speech, I don’t know what is,” Laurie Jaghlit, a 52-year-old grandmother who dons hijab, told The Washington Post.
“This is a diverse area. You’d think that hopefully we’d be beyond this.”
Planned for February 20, the event will be organized by the Republican Women of Clifton’s club at Fairview Elementary School in Virginia.
The club said Stephanie Reis, founder of the Omaha chapter of ACT! for America, “will focus on the treatment of women in Islamic society and how the Hijab is a catalyst for Islamism because it leads to the mentality of passive terrorism and silent support for Shari`ah Law in Western societies.”
Worse still, RWC President Alice Butler-Short identifies Shari`ah as one of “the forces working to destroy our liberty.”
The group’s public relations chairperson, Susan Lider, could not answer why hijab or Shari`ah were of concern to the club members.
“Let’s put it this way, it’s one of the things that people talk about,” she said.
“I don’t know a lot about it other than that I wouldn’t ever want to wear one.”
“What does it say to the students who have to go to the school the next day, perhaps wearing hijab or being identified as Muslims, the day after someone has been at the school saying the hijab is a catalyst for terrorism?” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said.
The umbrella Muslim group has earlier contacted the Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack D. Dale to ask him to rescind approval for the RWC to use the school.
But the school superintendent rejected the Muslim request.
“After school hours, anyone may rent the public facility,” Dale said.
“Once they allow community groups to come and use the school during non-school hours, they cannot then say to one of the groups, ‘We’re going to exclude you because we don’t like your viewpoint,’ ” Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, said.
Declining to be interviewed, RWC President Butler-Short said in an e-mail that “those who disagree with the views of any of the speakers at our club are welcome to express those contrary views in the marketplace of ideas.”
Jaghlit, the Muslim grandmother who will have the event held five miles near her house, prepares to attend the event with a dozen veiled Muslim women, to “have our non-terrorist voices heard.”
“I’m sure just the presence of hijabi women in the audience will do enough to hopefully get them to realize that this is pure nonsense,” she said.
She added that some RWC members may turn out to be people she knows.
“Hey, we’re your neighbors, for God’s sake,” she said. “Is that really what you think about your neighbor?”
Source: On Islam
“This is a diverse area. You’d think that hopefully we’d be beyond this.”
Planned for February 20, the event will be organized by the Republican Women of Clifton’s club at Fairview Elementary School in Virginia.
The club said Stephanie Reis, founder of the Omaha chapter of ACT! for America, “will focus on the treatment of women in Islamic society and how the Hijab is a catalyst for Islamism because it leads to the mentality of passive terrorism and silent support for Shari`ah Law in Western societies.”
Worse still, RWC President Alice Butler-Short identifies Shari`ah as one of “the forces working to destroy our liberty.”
The group’s public relations chairperson, Susan Lider, could not answer why hijab or Shari`ah were of concern to the club members.
“Let’s put it this way, it’s one of the things that people talk about,” she said.
“I don’t know a lot about it other than that I wouldn’t ever want to wear one.”
“What does it say to the students who have to go to the school the next day, perhaps wearing hijab or being identified as Muslims, the day after someone has been at the school saying the hijab is a catalyst for terrorism?” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said.
The umbrella Muslim group has earlier contacted the Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack D. Dale to ask him to rescind approval for the RWC to use the school.
But the school superintendent rejected the Muslim request.
“After school hours, anyone may rent the public facility,” Dale said.
“Once they allow community groups to come and use the school during non-school hours, they cannot then say to one of the groups, ‘We’re going to exclude you because we don’t like your viewpoint,’ ” Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, said.
Declining to be interviewed, RWC President Butler-Short said in an e-mail that “those who disagree with the views of any of the speakers at our club are welcome to express those contrary views in the marketplace of ideas.”
Jaghlit, the Muslim grandmother who will have the event held five miles near her house, prepares to attend the event with a dozen veiled Muslim women, to “have our non-terrorist voices heard.”
“I’m sure just the presence of hijabi women in the audience will do enough to hopefully get them to realize that this is pure nonsense,” she said.
She added that some RWC members may turn out to be people she knows.
“Hey, we’re your neighbors, for God’s sake,” she said. “Is that really what you think about your neighbor?”
Source: On Islam
