France expels a Sri Lankan student who is fluent in French under the pretext of not integrating

France expels a Sri Lankan student who is fluent in French under the pretext of not integrating

    Monday, October 02, 2023   No comments

The French authorities issued a deportation order for a high school student who came from Sri Lanka, under the pretext of not integrating into French society, despite her surroundings praising her and her fluency in the French language.

The French media reported the story of Shanaya Fernando, 18 years old, who came from Sri Lanka 4 years ago with her family to study in the city of Bordeaux. She received a deportation order and a grace period until the end of the month, claiming that she had not integrated well with French society and had no connection with the French.

The decision issued on September 21, by the Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information, affiliated with the French Prime Minister, recommended that the student leave the country, after refusing to issue her a residence permit.

Shanaya's story began at the end of 2019, when she fled Sri Lanka with her parents following "death threats due to the father's political opposition to an elected Sri Lankan official." The family arrived in France, then to Bordeaux a few weeks later.

Shanaya has been attending secondary school in Majendie since 2020. She is currently in her final year and speaks French fluently. According to Sandrine Nibot, a teacher at Majendie School, “Shania also got a 15/20 in oral French a few months ago, and she is a very serious and interested student.” ".

The teacher added, "This situation is very unfair. This family has given up everything in their country to protect their child. It also means ignoring everything that Shanaya has been able to achieve since her arrival, and everything that we can offer our students."

In excellent French, Shanaya says that she dreams of being a veterinarian, and she does not have much time left to knock on university doors, adding that she found a special association for the protection of cats in which she practices her passion.

Healthcare inequity: How Big Pharma and Western Governments betrayed countries of the Global South

Healthcare inequity: How Big Pharma and Western Governments betrayed countries of the Global South

    Thursday, September 07, 2023   No comments

First, it was Western governments that prioritized the vaccination of people in Europe over the need to protect the most vulnerable. For two years, EU governments either banned the export of covid vaccines outside the bloc or pressured companies to prioritize orders coming from Europe, even after many people in Europe were vaccinated, not just once, but twice.

Now, it is the turn of big pharma; companies that are headquartered in the West and protected by western governments, have been bullying African governments to sign deals for the supply of vaccines at higher prices.

It is now reported that Pharmaceutical giant Janssen/Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and generic manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) charged the South African government more than the European Union for COVID-19 vaccines – and South Africa assumed all the risk in ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ contracts with Pfizer, J&J and SII.

 

This is according to an analysis of the contracts led by Health Justice Initiative (HJI), a South African NGO that won a court challenge last month to get access to all South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccine contracts.

 

J&J charged South Africa $10 a dose, 15% more than the company charged the European Union (EU), and the government was required to pay a non-refundable down payment of $27.5 million.

Read full story.

  

Rights matters: Muslims right to education is superseded by France's commitment to secularism

Rights matters: Muslims right to education is superseded by France's commitment to secularism

    Tuesday, September 05, 2023   No comments

As the new academic year starts, Muslims’ right to education in Europe is denied in order to uphold and enforce secularism. This seems to be the logical conclusion of the events taking place in France this week: Muslim men and women who are wearing traditional clothes are denied entry to schools unless they take off such clothes and wear French style clothes; many refused to do so.

Agence French Presse reports the latest display of European religious tolerance in France with the banning of 67 girls from attending school for wearing the abaya on the first day of the school year. 

300 girls defied a ban on the wearing of the religious garment in protest to the recent ruling by the French government that the long robe worn by some Muslims breached rules on secularism in schools. 

French President Macron had earlier sought to link the wearing of religious dress with the murder of school teacher, Samuel Paty three years ago, saying "we cannot act as if the terrorist attack, the murder of Samuel Paty, had not happened". 

67 of the girls refused to change and were banned from attending classes, ensuring the safety of the Republic from modestly dressed observant school children.

  

Girls in a defiant scene wear abayas in schools despite the ban on the abaya in France..and the authorities send them back to their homes..and the French Council for the Islamic Religion considers banning the abaya an “arbitrary” decision

Late Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron defended this measure, stressing that it aims to defend secularism and the principles of the republic. He also mentioned the terrorist attacks that the country witnessed, especially the killing of Professor Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by a jihadist near his school.

In an interview with YouTuber Ugo Decrypt on his channel, Macron said, "We also live in our society with a minority, with people who change the direction of a religion and come to challenge the Republic and secularism." "Sometimes the worst happened," Macron added. We cannot act as if there had been no terrorist attack and there was no Samuel Paty."

On October 16, 2020, Professor of History and Geography Samuel Paty (47 years old) was stabbed to death in front of his school in the Parisian region, by the Chechen jihadist Abdullah Anzorov, who beheaded the teacher before the police shot him dead. This professor was killed days after he showed his students, during a class on freedom of expression, caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The jihadist said in an audio recording that he had committed his act "in retaliation for the Prophet."

An association representing Muslims has applied to the Council of State, France's highest court for complaints against state authorities, to issue an injunction against the ban on the abaya and chemise, the equivalent dress for men.

The "Action for Muslim Rights" memorandum will be considered later Tuesday.

According to the law of March 15, 2004, which prohibits the wearing of signs or clothes that show religious affiliation, students in violation are allowed to enter the school, not the classroom, provided that a dialogue takes place between the family and the Ministry of Education. This includes Christian crosses, Jewish skullcaps and Islamic headscarves.

However, unlike the veil, the abaya was not clearly defined within this law.

For its part, the official body representing Islam in France considered on Tuesday that the recent ban on the cloak in schools in France is "arbitrary" and creates "high risks of discrimination" against Muslims.

In the name of the principle of secularism, the French government announced at the end of August the ban on wearing the abaya in schools because of its controversial religious nature. In France, it is forbidden to wear religious symbols in schools under a law passed in 2004.

The French Council for the Islamic Religion considered that the absence of "a clear definition of this dress creates, in fact, an ambiguous situation and judicial insecurity."

This body noted in particular that the abaya can sometimes be considered “Islamic” – and thus prohibited – and at other times “un-Islamic” and therefore permitted.

As a result, the council expressed its fear of “arbitrary control,” as the criteria for evaluating girls’ dress are based on “presumed origin, last name, or skin color.”

Therefore, the authority warns that it reserves the right to take legal action “if the concrete application of this prohibition leads to forms of discrimination.” She added that the cloak "was never a garment or a religious guide."

About 300 female students out of 12 million who started the school year wearing the abaya this week attended schools on Monday, and 67 of them were sent home because of their refusal to comply with the government decision, according to figures announced by the Ministry of National Education on Tuesday.

Banning the abaya in schools is controversial in France, where the left asserts that this measure hides more pressing problems in national education, such as a shortage of teachers.

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Biden: “We must refuse to live in a country where Black families live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin.”

Biden: “We must refuse to live in a country where Black families live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin.”

    Monday, August 28, 2023   No comments

President Biden and other politicians are falling back on rhetoric instead of facing the systemic problem of racism that has been a reality in US society, and only made worse by politicians, including presidents and presidential candidates who ordered Muslim bans and proposed denying Muslims the opporutunity to serve as judges, in the last few years. Biden’s recent response, when considering that Black families have been living with the fear he described and do live with that fear that people should refuse to the live the US.

President Joe Biden on Sunday said in a statement that “We must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has no place in America,” he said. “We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin.”

Another politician, and a presidential hopeful, who did his share denying historical marginalization of Blacks and took steps to ban courses that speak to historical injustice against Black people, is offering prayers and rhetoric too.

DeSantis also attended a vigil Sunday night for the shooting that left three people dead in Jacksonville on Saturday before the gunman killed himself. DeSantis began the Sunday news conference by condemning the shooting, which broke out near Edward Waters University, a historically Black university. The three victims were Black and shooter, a 21-year-old armed with an AR-15 and who police said had written a manifesto, was white.

DeSantis said he has spoken with Edward Waters President A. Zachary Faison Jr. and offered extra security resources, similar to what Jewish Day Schools received after they received threats.

“Perpetrating violence of this kind is unacceptable, and targeting people because of their race has no place in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “We’re not going to allow in the state of Florida, our HBCUs to be targets for hateful lunatics like the guy yesterday.”

Read the news story.

 

 

 

MP Geert Wilders: "The Netherlands is no longer the Netherlands"

MP Geert Wilders: "The Netherlands is no longer the Netherlands"

    Tuesday, May 23, 2023   No comments

Dutch Member of Parliament and far-right politician Geert Wilders ridiculed what he said was the increase in Muslims in the Netherlands, and added that watching them perform prayers in the streets of the Netherlands expresses the stripping of the Netherlands of its identity.

By not calling the Syrian government with words of condolence for the dead Syrians, Erdogan may have missed his chance to rehabilitate his sectarian supremacy

By not calling the Syrian government with words of condolence for the dead Syrians, Erdogan may have missed his chance to rehabilitate his sectarian supremacy

    Thursday, February 16, 2023   No comments

When a government minister from Greece, a country with which Turkey is threatening with war, becomes the first among his European colleagues to visit quake-hit Turkey to survey the extent of the disaster caused by the quakes there, Erdogan’s government should have done the same with its Syrian counterpart. After all, Erdogan has played a pivotal role in the crisis in that country that destroyed the country and left nearly 20% of its territory outside the control of the government. Instead, Erdogan chose to ignore common human compassion, Islamic norms that require ta`ziya, and neighborly obligation in order to preserve his political posturing.

Politics should never supersede human decency. That is why many of the Arab rulers who wished for the overthrown of the Syrian government and invested in that project, like the King of Jordan, the Sheikh of UAE, and Egypt’s Sisi’s, all of them despite their disagreements with the Syrian government, called the Syrian president for ta`ziya and to offer help. Sixteen other Arabi governments that cut ties with the Syrian government during the crisis reached out with words of support and offers of help. But not Erdogan.

Erdogan, who reshaped Turkish society to his liking, wanted to recreate his neighborhood as well, not work with his neighbors. He used religion, nationalism, and politics to pursue an agenda of supremacy driven by the same callous Darwinian capitalism that is at the root of most of the social and environmental illnesses. His refusal to do the decent thing and pick up the phone and say to his counterpart in the neighboring country that was devastated by the same deadly and destructive earthquake, inna lillahi wa-inna ilayhi raji`un, shows that he lacks the temperament of a leader who is supposed to represent the values of his society not his personal impulses and sectarian biases.

We say secterian bias because it is clear thzt Erdogan is willing to make peace with all former enemies, yet he resists making peace with the Syrian government and the only reason we see is because Assad is not a Sunni Muslim, he is seen by sectarian leader as a person who belongs to an inferior sect ruling over the majority-Sunni country. That is why only another sectarian nation-state, Qatar refuses to deal with the Syrian government, prompting a renouned journalist to write a public letter to the emir, we share it here because it highlights the same issues addressed in this editorial.

His Highness Sheikh “Tamim bin Hamad,” this is an open letter to public opinion and before God Almighty, from a crushed and overpowering Arab citizen to Your Highness. Perhaps you will hear these words emanating from a heart squeezed by grief and pain over a nation that is being written off from the map of influence, and is living in the worst stages of an era of deterioration.

Your Highness: Syria, which was hit by a devastating earthquake that left thousands of victims and tens of thousands of afflicted, displaced and wounded, is living the tragedy of the century, and its people are groaning under the weight of a double catastrophe after years of war and siege. Millions in Syria are below the poverty line, ravaged by poverty, hunger, destitution and cold.. Children, women, the elderly and decent families Mastoura has become homeless or breadwinner. You may be aware of this through reports that are supposed to reach you.

Many countries of the world, led by Arab and Islamic countries, have come to the aid and relief with the commendable capabilities they can, and the countries of Qatar have lagged behind in that. I know that you are helping our brothers in Turkey, and this is a humanitarian work that you bear witness to. And you help our brothers in northern Syria where the Syrian government has no control, and this is a blessed act, but excluding areas such as Aleppo, Latakia, Jableh and Hama because they are located in the areas of the Syrian government or the “regime” as you call it from relief, and withholding any sympathy for them or conveying their suffering, or even condolence with them . Allow me to say that this approach is wrong, and it harms the State of Qatar, its reputation and its future, more than it harms the Syrians at a painful but fleeting moment in the course of history.

  The human tendency does not differentiate between one person and another on the basis of where he resides. Arab brotherhood, Arab blood, magnanimity, originality, and Arab honor necessitate transcendence over political differences and fear to save simple people, brothers, and human beings anywhere, regardless of the political dispute with the government or the difference in orientations. The State of Qatar must help the brothers and the Syrian people in Aleppo, Lattakia, Jableh and Hama, just like its donation to help the Syrian people in Idlib, Jandiris and other regions of the north.

If there is a political disagreement and a rift between you and the Syrian leadership, then let it not be, and no one will ask you to change your political orientations according to what you see as serving the interests of your country. But at the same time, there is no political dispute between the Syrian and Qatari peoples. It is a common sympathy and pain, and I am confident that your Qatari people are in pain for every Syrian and do not differentiate between those who sit in the open in Aleppo or those who sleep in the cold in Idlib. The entire Syrian people is afflicted and needs the embrace of its Arab brothers. Syria has always been the first to extend a helping hand to all Arabs in their tribulations and misfortunes, and it has never been stingy or hesitated for a single moment in offering even lives for Arab causes.

Your Highness: Perhaps you know or have heard about the gift of the Syrians in all cities, as well as the Arabs and Muslims in all countries, to defend Qatar in the face of bullying, racism and confusion practiced by Western countries during Qatar's hosting of the World Cup. They gave you love and sympathy, and this is more valuable than all the treasures and money of the earth. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian activists in Damascus, Homs, Aleppo and other cities did not say that there is a political dispute that necessitates refraining from defending our brothers who achieve a common achievement that raises the heads of all Arabs.

The Syrian people are a dear and dignified people, full of dignity, dignity and pride. A word of sympathy and consolation. Watching the Arab brothers flock to them and their planes landing in their country is more important to them than bread, medicine, housing and money.

I know this people very well, and I know that Syria, the homeland, will not be burned or drowned. This is Syria, the mother of every Arab. The homeland is for those who have no homeland. Syria is the holy land, the kind and warm people, and the civilization steeped in history. An earthquake, war, or disaster cannot erase it.

Your Highness, deafen your ear, even for a moment, to the voices of blind hatred, the voices that filled the space around you with calls to stop and cut aid to Syria in the most difficult disaster it is going through, and sayings that the Syrian regime benefits from the disaster and that aid saves the regime from the siege. The truth is that the children of Syria are languishing under the rubble and in the open.

These voices are now insulting to Qatar and to the image of its peaceful, loving and open people. Those voices that were stripped of humanity and blinded by hatred, blackness of the heart and sickness of the mind.

Deaf ears to the calls not to help the afflicted because they are in the “regime” areas. These are shameful and disgraceful calls, and hear the voice of the Arab blood that flows in your veins. Hear the voice of the facts that indicate that there are Arabs and non-Arabs. Come to the differences, renounce hatred and break the siege for the sake of Arab and human brotherhood, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Jordan, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan, Mauritania, Libya, Lebanon, the Sultanate of Oman and Bahrain, while Qatar seems isolated, measuring its humanity with narrow political calculations. A victim from the opposition area, and this is a victim from the regime area.”

Your Highness the Emir: It is not too late, and the State of Qatar can suspend the political dispute, and rush now to Syria to offer a helping hand and assistance, or at least offer condolences for the victims, just like its Arab and Muslim brothers and the free countries of the world. Your blessed efforts to help in Turkey and northern Syria remain incomplete if they do not include assistance to all those affected by the earthquake, wherever they are or reside, and whatever the circumstances and differences. Your position is not permissible humanly, morally, legally and patriotic before God and the court of history and peoples.

  One day, Arab brotherhood and one Arab blood will be victorious, so Your Highness contributed to making this day soon, and do not make sisterly Qatar a prisoner of a chorus of sick people who live on differences and are addicted to insults, grudges and provoking division.

This is the message of an Arab citizen who has no power or power and only possesses the word of truth and seeks nothing but God's approval.

Kamal Khalaf

Writer and Journalist

The Sheikh of Al-Azhar calls for a dialogue with Shiite Muslim scholars

The Sheikh of Al-Azhar calls for a dialogue with Shiite Muslim scholars

    Friday, November 04, 2022   No comments

Today, Friday, Al-Azhar Sheikh Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb appealed to Shia Muslim scholars to hold an Islamic-Islamic dialogue in order to renounce "sectarian strife," at a time when several countries in the region and the world are experiencing tensions over a sectarian background.

In a speech delivered at the conclusion of the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue "East and West for Human Coexistence", in the presence of Pope Francis at the Royal Palace of Sakhir, Al-Tayeb appealed to "Islamic scholars in the whole world, regardless of their sects, sects and schools, to hasten to hold a serious Islamic-Islamic dialogue." In order to establish unity, rapprochement and acquaintance, the causes of discord, strife and sectarian conflict in particular are rejected.

The Imam of Al-Azhar said: “This invitation, as I address it to our fellow Shiite Muslims, I am ready, along with the senior scholars of Al-Azhar and the Council of Muslim Elders, to hold such a meeting with open hearts and outstretched hands to sit together at one table.”

The Imam of Al-Azhar set the meeting’s goal by “overcoming the page of the past and promoting Islamic affairs and the unity of Islamic positions,” suggesting that its decisions “provide an end to mutual hate speech, methods of provocation and infidelity, and the need to overcome historical and contemporary conflicts with all their problems and bad sediments.”

Al-Tayyib stressed that “it is forbidden for Muslims to listen to the calls of discord and discord, and to beware of falling into the trap of tampering with the stability of countries, exploiting religion by stirring up national and sectarian strife, interfering in the affairs of states, undermining their sovereignty or usurping their lands.”

The Sheikh of Al-Azhar calls for an end to the war in Ukraine

In a separate context, the sheikh of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif called for an end to the war in Ukraine for the sake of world peace and stability, saying: “I add my voice to the voice of benevolent people who call for peace and an end to the Russian-Ukrainian war, and to spare the blood of innocents who have no elegance or utterance in this tragedy, And raising the banner of peace instead of the banner of victory, and sitting in the circle of dialogue and negotiations.”

Al-Tayeb also called for "stopping the fighting going on in various parts of the world by rebuilding bridges of dialogue, understanding and trust, in order to restore peace in a world riddled with wounds, so that the alternative is not more suffering for poor peoples, and more dire consequences for the East and West."