Islamophobia Watch

A 20-year-old Malmö woman has been awarded damages after she was asked to leave a bus for wearing a veil. The woman has received 25,000 kronor ($4,203) from public bus service operator Arriva after an agreement was reached with the Ombudsman against ethnic discrimination (DO), according to local newspaper Sydsvenskan.

The woman was instructed to leave the bus in the southern Swedish city when she refused to remove the niqab veil that she was wearing as part of her sartorial hijab headdress. The bus driver had asked the woman to remove her niqab so that he could identify her, however the woman was using a bus pass that did not require identification.

"The bus driver has not acted according to Arriva's values. There is no doubt where the fault lies and this is most regrettable. We are happy to pay out the money to make up for it," said Jan Wildau at Arriva. As a result of the incident the bus driver, who was employed on an hourly basis, no longer works for Arriva.

The Local, 12 April 2008

Two Muslim mothers have won a court appeal against a municipal pool in Gothenburg that required them to take off their veils and body-covering clothing. The Court of Appeal for western Sweden found the City of Gothenburg guilty of ethnic discrimination and ordered the authorities to pay the women 20,000 kronor ($3,000) each in damages.

The women, Houda Morabet and Hayal Eroglu, were at the pool separately on two different occasions in April 2004, accompanying their young children but not to swim themselves. Both were wearing veils, long pants and long-sleeved tee-shirts because their religion does not allow them to reveal parts of their body in public.

The lifeguards testified that although there was nothing in the security regulations about veils, the rules did require people in the pool area to wear shorts and tee-shirts, even if they don't plan to swim. The mothers' cumbersome clothing would have prevented them from coming to the rescue of their children if necessary, they argued.

The Local, 29 January 2008

Eleven Iranian women have been banned from the Konishi Cup karate competition in Kalmar, Sweden, after they refused to remove their hijab. The women ended up watching the competition from the stands at the beginning of August when head referee Javier Escalante declined to give them a special dispensation, a Swedish-based English-language online newspaper The Local said quoting the Sveriges Radio. It added that the Iranian women had traveled to Sweden solely to take part in the championship.

Press TV, 15 August 2007

In western Sweden, a Muslim woman has won her battle with a supermarket which told her at a job interview that she couldn't work there if she refused to remove her headscarf. The woman took her case to the Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination and was awarded compensation. The ICA Kvantum supermarket in Västra Frölunda were ordered to apologize to the woman and pay her around $11,000 in damages. The supermarket has adjusted its dress code for staff.

Radio Sweden, 4 May 2007

A Malmö bus driver has been fired from his job following revelations that he stopped a woman from boarding his bus because she was wearing a niqab, a form of Islamic headdress that covers the face. The bus company, Arriva, has elected not to extend the driver's contract, suggesting that this was not an isolated incident.

The incident occurred last Tuesday morning when "Leonora" boarded the number 35 bus on her usual route between the Rosengård housing estate and the city's central station. According to Leonora, the driver stopped her from boarding, saying that her niqab made her hard to identify. Leonora stayed on the bus anyway, but claims that the driver mocked her and looked at her angrily.

The Local, 2 May 2007

A major crisis management training exercise taking place in Stockholm next week will contribute to further stigmatization of Muslims, according to two leading members of the Green Party. "The security police constantly engages in harassing Muslims and actively contributes to fuelling Islamophobia," wrote Stockholm's opposition vice mayor Yvonne Ruwaida and member of parliament Mehmet Kaplan on Dagens Nyheter's opinion page.

The politicians believe that the crisis exercise which the Swedish Emergency Management Agency (Krisberedskapsmyndigheten) is starting on Wednesday will follow this pattern. Around 4,000 people will participate in the exercise and the scenario which they will attempt to deal with is described as "a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction".

The terrorists in the exercise have been given the fictional name of 'Bogalanders'. They live in one of the predominantly immigrant "Million Homes" areas, their religion is split into two factions and they are protesting against the occupation of holy ground in "Bogaland". "The parallels with Muslims and Islam are not exactly hard to find," wrote Kaplan and Ruwaida.

The Local, 22 April 2007

Two Muslim mothers in Sweden on Wednesday lost a discrimination case against an indoor swimming pool where the lifeguards had asked them to remove their veils and body-covering clothing. The Gothenburg court ruled the municipal pool had not discriminated against the women.

The women, Houda Morabet and Hayal Eroglu, were at the pool separately on two different occasions in April 2004, accompanying their young children but not to swim themselves. Both were wearing veils, long pants and long-sleeved tee-shirts.

The lifeguards testified that although there was nothing in the security regulations about veils, the rules did require people in the pool area to wear shorts and tee-shirts, even if they don't plan to swim. The mothers' cumbersome clothing would have prevented them from coming to the rescue of their children if necessary, they argued.

The Local, 7 March 2007

Via Islam in Europe

Sweden's new integration minister dismissed allegations of "Islamophobia" by Muslim groups, and vowed Monday to defend the rights of women who are "oppressed in the name of religion."

Nyamko Sabuni, 37, has irritated Muslim leaders by opposing religious schools and suggesting that all schools ban Islamic headscarves for girls younger than 15. Nearly 50 Muslim organizations signed a petition opposing her appointment as integration minister, saying her views "breathe of populism and Islamophobia."

"I will not let myself be scared into silence," Sabuni told reporters when asked about the petition. "I will never accept that women and girls are oppressed in the name of religion."

Associated Press, 19 February 2007

"So what are Mr. Bawer's views? He calls himself a 'liberal' cultural critic but his views are anything but liberal, and he is much in vogue with the ultraconservative National Review types as well as the ethno-nationalist 'intellectuals' in Europe where he lives....

"Bawer has his own solution to the 'immigrant question'. He tells us his views are unfairly attacked by people who call him names 'instead of trying to respond to irrefutable facts and arguments'. If Mr. Bawer's arguments are indeed 'irrefutable' what would be the point of trying to respond to them? People who believe their opinions and arguments are 'irrefutable' are manifesting that very same fundamentalist mentality they claim to be opposing.

"Here is Bawer's solution. 'European officials', he writes, 'have a clear route out of this nightmare. They have armies. They have police. They have prisons. They're in a position to deport planeloads of people everyday. They could start rescuing Europe tomorrow.' Clearly, when you are calling out the army and advocating deportation of planeloads of people daily, there is more to it than a crackdown on violent militant Islamists. This looks like a call to a general assault on Muslim immigrants in general.

"This may also explain his sympathetic defense of the Sweden Democrats in an opinion piece he wrote for the December 8, 2006 New York Sun. This article, 'While Sweden Slept' is an incontinent attack on Swedish Social Democracy. The Sweden Democrats he champions in this article are a small radical right-wing party of ethno-nationalists. It grew out of the racist 'Keep Sweden Swedish' movement of the 1980s. Their basic ideology is the ein Volk, ein Reich variety. One of their own leaders resigned saying the party was infested with neo-Nazis, racists and holocaust deniers. The party is opposed to immigration and if it ever got into power would no doubt take Bawer's views on how to 'rescue Europe' (or at least Sweden) seriously."

Thomas Riggins in Political Affairs, 13 February 2007

"The latest media darling of Scandinavian politics is not only black, beautiful and Muslim; she is also firmly against the wearing of the veil.

"Nyamko Sabuni, 37, has caused a storm as Sweden's new integration and equality minister by arguing that all girls should be checked for evidence of female circumcision; arranged marriages should be criminalised; religious schools should receive no state funding; and immigrants should learn Swedish and find a job.

"Supporters of the centre-right government that came to power last month believe that her bold rejection of cultural diversity may make her a force for change across Europe. Her critics are calling her a hardliner and even an Islamophobe."

Sunday Times, 22 October 2006

Looks like Sweden has found its own Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Sabuni has already received the endorsement of Little Green Footballs and Dhimmi Watch.

P.S. And Western Resistance and Pickled Politics.