Antwerp: Politician wears hijab in protest

Spirit leader Bettina Geysen wore a hijab at the start of her New Year's speech in Antwerp this past Sunday, out of indignation with the Ghent ban on hijabs and a possible ban in the future also the in the East Flanders province.

The move was met with criticism from Vlaams Belang. Filip Dewinter said she "prostitutes herself for Islam". Dewinter said Geysen provoked all Flemish by giving her speech with a headscarf, under the cloak of pluralism and tolerance. He said that having the head of a self-declared progressive party, which stands up for women's emancipation and equality, decked out with an Islamic headscarf is too crazy for words. "The headscarf is the Islam symbol of the discrimination of the woman and of resistance towards our Western society."

The Antwerp Vlaams Belang head called the Antwerp municipal council to follow suit on the ban also in the civil service.

Source: HLN 1, 2 (Dutch)

2 comments:

sadia said...

Woman’s right to hijab is the right to dignity and protection



Time and again the media blatantly transgresses righteousness by spreading anti Islamic policies (thus building a highly misleading notion by devising a repugnant slogan called “Islam phobia) allegedly on pretext of “liberalizing” women mainly in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries where women (Muslim) go out guarding their modesty by wearing a hijab (cloak). Such chivalrous qualities are deliberately derided by the west where women are treated as mere objects of pleasure.



In USA, UK and other modern countries the crime rates have escalated rapidly surpassing even the biggest of their skyscrapers, thereby exposing the “ugly face” of these self-styled “liberal” countries in matters concerning women.



Women in west are indubitably, the most ill-treated and dejected beings owing to the incessant and merciless assaults on their body and mind, occurring at a frightening rate. Due to the lack of morality, men in west on the whole continue to assume a woman as nothing more than a standby for leisure until the next “woman” is found.



This poor state of immorality is slowly but surely going to destroy the civility, morality and above all- the essence of humanity.



Countries like France have mindlessly affronted Muslim sentiments by placing a ban against wearing hijab or even a headscarf in public institutions, distressing Muslim women all over. What are they trying to convey?



What form of “liberalization” compels upright women to shed their cloaks and protective garments to be harassed and abused ruthlessly?



As a matter of fact, opposing hijab or headscarfs is definitely “not liberal” but an out-and-out violation of the most basics of human rights.



A true liberal and a true human is the one who respects humanity and advocates freedom and dignity in every corner of the world regardless of race, religion or color of the skin.



Sadia Masroor

Anonymous said...

A true liberal and a true human is the one who respects humanity and advocates freedom and dignity in every corner of the world regardless of race, religion or color of the skin.
True. That is why many peop;le are disguxted by a religion thgat advocates the flogging of women, the chopping off of the hands of thieves and the punishment, sometimes by death, of people who opt for freedom of thought rather than a religion that advocates the dictatorship of sharia law.

Anyone that respects humanity and advocates freedom and dignity in should oppose a totalitarian regime. Practically every country with a muslim majority is a dictatorship. The worst are those at the very heart of Islam. Islam is institutionally opposed to freedom & democracy.