"Jewel heists target Asians: One recent robbery included a male thief disguised in a head-to-toe burqa," by Betsy Powell and John Duncanson in the Toronto Star, with thanks to Cindy:
Abdul Rasheed Khalid was alone in his Brampton jewellery store filling the display cases with yellow gold rings and necklaces when two people, one wearing a head-to-toe black burqa, appeared outside his locked door."Salamu alaikum," the 58-year-old store owner said after pushing the entry buzzer, believing them to be a Muslim couple. There was no reply, and seconds later the pair — both males — forced him at gunpoint to the back office where he was bound with duct tape and hit several times. Then his store was cleaned out.
"Keep quiet, keep quiet, close your eyes," they said, while emptying the red velvet trays into duffel bags carried by an accomplice. Khalid caught a glimpse of the crooks. He thinks they were Pakistani or Indian.
Last Friday's daylight robbery has other South Asian jewellers across the GTA on edge, fearful they'll be next. The thieves didn't seem to care that Zaibi Jewellers is in the same strip mall as a storefront Peel Region police station at McLaughlin Rd. and Ray Lawson Blvd.
But this is not why the burqa should be banned. It should be understood that it primarily stems from a fear and hatred of women and sex and is therefore an affront against life and creation. Focussing on robberies is hardly the point.
Those who insist on wearing the burqa should accept the logical and reasonably foreseeable consequences of their own actions. And they should understand that others in this world have rights as well. For example, a business owner has a right to protect his or her investment by identifying potential thieves. A business owner should thus have the right to deny entry to any person who hides his or her identity. A bank should have the right to refuse to cash checks for someone who hides his or her identity. An airline should have the right to refuse to board any passenger who hides his or her identity. Living in the modern world has certain implications. A muslim should be able to exercise her right to wear a burqa, so long as muslim's respect the rights of others to refuse to deal with a burqa-wearer because it is necessary to protect their own, or society's, interests.
Canada's version of CAIR should be vomitting with outrage! People impersonating pious Muslims are committing robberies! This sort of thing can only give Islam a bad name!
Oh my gosh, ISLAMSFORLOSERS!!!! Puking pious muslims. GROSS!
This muslim male was robbed by his religion...in more ways than one.
In addition to the burqa, other forms of the Islamic veil should also be outlawed.
This muslim male was robbed by his religion...in more ways than one.
Posted by: freewoman at November 22, 2006 09:00 AM
Sure was. That makes him a double victim, the lucky stiff.
A muslim should be able to exercise her right to wear a burqa, so long as muslim's respect the rights of others to refuse to deal with a burqa-wearer because it is necessary to protect their own, or society's, interests.
Posted by: Howard, Fine & Howard
Oh, really? This kind of property crime is only the tip of the iceberg. What happens when someone boards a bus or commuter train wearing one of these with a concealed bomb underneath it or a semi-automatic? Do we need a few more 9/11's or 7/7s before lawyers, judges and legislators start to wake up and realize what allowing people with no faces to walk around like ghosts is really all about? Its appalling that the legal community in Canada (or most other western countries) still don't get it.
Ban the whole ball of wax - hijab, burqa, niqab, all of it, and any corresponding male dress - now!
Another thing: in London they CCTV cameras on every street corner.
But what is the point when women (and men) can go around wearing a burqa or any other covering that covers the face.
yeah I just read the paper version delivered to my home today. The theives are pakistani looks like.
by the way we have something like 14 mosques in toronto a city of 5 million people. The vast majority are not muslim
If the stroe owner had been a white caucasian male he would have been expected to assist the looters in loading his stock in their getaway vehicule or face charges of islamophobia from the local police.
H, F & H:
Some years ago, when bank robbers took to wearing balaclavas and nylons over their heads to conceal their identity, a law was passed banning people from moving about in public with their faces concealed. Similar laws were also passed in the US to bar members of the Ku Klux Klan from appearing in their famous white hoods in public as well. I'd make a distinction between the right to wear a hejab in public from the right to wear a burqa or niqab in public. If it was really about piety, men would be wearing them too.
On another level, there's the issue about how free the women who wear them are in doing so. I think in particular of an extremely hot day a few summers ago when I saw a Muslim man out with two children. The father wore loose-fitting white cotton garments and the little kulfi hat. The little boy was in a pair of shorts, t-shirt and sandals, but the girl -- at least I assume it was a girl -- was clad from head to toe in a heavy black cotton dress that came several inches below her knees and full head veil with a rectangular slit. She must have been sweltering under that get-up and would have had no say in the matter.
[...]
by the way we have something like 14 mosques in toronto a city of 5 million people. The vast majority are not muslim
Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 22, 2006 02:29 PM
Allies: Are you alluding to the fact that the GTA's Muslim community is largely comprised of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and their children or are you saying that the vast majority of Torontonians aren't Muslim?
Hey, the guy shouldn't gripe...it's only booty!
waterdragon52 pardon --i should have been more clear. I mean most Torontonians are not muslims but
the mosques are growing because we are accepting immigrants who are for the most part muslims. And most of them of course, settle in Toronto.
---
Most are immigrants but lots of the muslim 'youth' who wanted to plant those bombs in my fair city were born and raised here (not all of them). We have radicals from overseas, we have radicals from here. Its the Koran -once you pick it up and you like the darkness you see --you become one of them. Normal decent humans on other hand vomit after reading it (I did and I have read it 4 times).
The law should be that you cannot have your face covered in public, and not specifically target Muslims. They will, no doubt, whine about it, but they won't have the argument that the law specifically targets them.
Jewelery stores and banks should also make it a policy not to allow people in if their face is covered. No shirt, no shoes, no face... no service.
Allies:
A bit bulemic,are we? (Just kidding, but reading the Koran four times would seem to be cruel and unusual punishment for anyone normal.)
I'm probably a lot older than you and remember the earlier waves of Muslim immigration, primarily from Pakistan and the more recent arrival of exiled Iranians. These people came here to better themselves and have assimilated.
One thing I find interesting by contrast, is that the jihaddists come from the Indian subcontinent and "Arab" countries. It was women from the Iranian community who helped squelch Sharia courts in Ontario, wanting no part of what sent them fleeing their homeland in the first place.
One shouldn't be surprised that Muslim robbers victimize fellow Muslims. Jihadists have killed far more of their fellow Muslims than they have killed us kaffirs. Islam promotes criminality.
A few years ago in New Delhi, A Muslim friend and I were together. I started to hail an auto-rickshaw for a ride. He immediately stopped me and told me to wait for the next one.
I asked him why and he said, "didn't you see the Arabic writing on the front? That driver is Muslim. He'll probably try to cheat us. Let's wait for a Sikh. They're usually honest."
My friend was Muslim so it wasn't pejudice he spoke from. He knew his own people but, as a decent human being, he refused to accept their criminality. I pray for this man and his family often.