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The current round of controversy over veiling spreads to Germany. By Stefanie Von Brochowski for AP:
BERLIN -- A Turkish-born lawmaker who urged Muslim women in Germany to take off their head scarves has received death threats and is now under police protection, a spokesman for her party said Tuesday.
Two weeks ago, Ekin Deligoz, a member of Germany's opposition Green Party, said "the head scarf is a symbol of women's oppression."
"I appeal to Muslim women: Arrive in the present day, arrive in Germany -- you live here, so take off the head scarf," she told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "Show that you have the same civil and human rights as men."
Markus Kamrad, a spokesman for the Green Party, said Deligoz "is under protection following the recommendation of the security authorities. ... There have been threats."
On Tuesday, German Muslim leaders condemned the threats, although they said they disagreed with her stance.
"We have a different position regarding the headscarf, but that's not critical in these days. The most important thing is that all of us stand up for the freedom of opinion," Mounir Azzaoui, spokesman for the Central Council of Muslims, said after a meeting between Muslim groups and Green Party leaders.
Germany's interior minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said it was "absolutely legitimate that a woman who is Muslim herself ... makes this appeal."
"That is her opinion, she can do that; we as legislators do not regulate that," Schaeuble said on Inforadio. "But what we as legislators assert with all determination is that this opinion can be expressed, and that one should not need police protection for it."
The head scarf issue echoes a recent controversy in Britain, where former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he asked women to remove their veils before coming to see him in his office. It also underlines tension between the secular outlook of many Turkish immigrant women in Germany and more traditional Turkish Muslim ways.
Germany has more than 3 million Muslims, most of them from Turkey.
After the meeting with Muslim groups at parliamentary offices in Berlin, Deligoz said "all of us want that freedom of expression in this country is possible and that you can't play religion off against freedom of expression."
The Green Party's co-leader in parliament, Renate Kuenast, said she had complained to Turkey's ambassador in Berlin of "unacceptable" reactions in Turkish media to Deligoz's comments.
One newspaper report compared the lawmaker with the Nazis and another drew a parallel with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch lawmaker who has been a prominent critic of Islam.
Posted by Marisol at November 2, 2006 11:02 AM
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Germany has gone from one extreme to the other. Is this some perverse way of making up for the Holocaust? The Germans paid billions to Israel to partially make up for that crime so maybe now they think they have to make up for being so pro Israeli by caving in to these nuts(so think their idiot politicians anyway). In a way, Germany is like India. India has so many Muslims there's no way they can hit Pakistan without causing massive internal problems. The Germans try to keep these idiots in line and they're called Nazis. Those Islamaniacs are indeed slick-they know they can hit the Germans all they like because who wants to be called a Nazi? I'm amazed they haven't made even more progress subverting that country by holding its past over its head but unless some new Bismarck shows up the Germans might be doomed to overtake France in going super dhimmi.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 2, 2006 11:21 AM
I thought Turkey had the moderate muslims?
Anyway, goog to see the Green PC brigade waking up, though not good to see this sensible woman getting death threats.
Posted by: Celsius at November 2, 2006 1:15 PM
Incredible how people can't comment on the stupidity of outsiders even though it's their own damn country. Disgraceful!
Hey germaninamerica, you gotta comment on this one. We've been missing you!
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at November 2, 2006 1:22 PM
Head covering can be considered oppressive by some and liberating by others. It all depends on your religion and culture. Veils are definatley oppressive. Covering the face blocks much of the peripheral vision therby handicapping one. I will not even talk to any person unless I can see their face. A veil says to me that the person has such a low opinion of themself that they need to hide from the world and handicap themself so that someone else has to take care of them. I live in a community with devout Mennonites and Amish. The women in these communities wear their hair up and have a kind of covering over it. I would never consider any of those women oppressed. They live/dress this way out of choice and love for their community and they will not suffer death threats if they leave. They wear this covering to tell the world who they are. Mennonites and Amish want to live appart from this world and not take it over. Mennonites and Amish don't vote or participate in politics. The big differance between Christian head covering and Muslim head covering is that Muslim head covering is out of fear while the Christian head covering is out of choice. In the US, if we were to ban any kind of head covering the ACLU would have a field day. And since muslims are not going to assimilate and demand the prevailing culture adjust to theirs, the best approach is to prohibit them from entering the US.
Posted by: never_submit at November 2, 2006 1:34 PM
Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan muslim writer says of the headcovering: a woman who does not wear a headcovering is actually naked in islamic terms. To walk down the street naked is an act of aggression, deserving of punishment (rape, I suppose.)
at November 2, 2006 1:59 PM
Show that you have the same civil and human rights as men."
that imo is why the imans and muslim men are mad that a mere female should consider women the equel of a muslim male
# Women have rights that are similar to men, but men are "a degree above them." 2:228
# A woman is worth one-half a man. 2:282
and becuase of the above muslim men will go nuts at a upity female
at November 2, 2006 2:05 PM
Turkey's muslims are as moderate as the Qur'an allows them to be....
Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 2, 2006 3:10 PM
...which aint much!
As for the veil (some say its only a tradition)--its not a tradition if you know anything about the hadiths and rules in Islam. The liberal head of the Muslim Congress here in Canada started to say stuff like that and she has been threatened viciously.
Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at November 2, 2006 3:12 PM
If women want to wear headscarves, I think they should be allowed to. I can see why people would want to ban them, but the headscarf is inherently meaningless.
Instead of talking about headscarves, people should be focusing on the much more dangerous aspects of Muslim culture.
Posted by: Jesus Christ Supercop at November 2, 2006 3:46 PM
Muslim women are wearing the veil not just for religious reasons as they claim, but to force Infidel society to accommodate Islamic practices. This is confirmed by the knowledge that the Muslim teacher in the UK was under a fatwa from a Muslim cleric to wear the veil.
at November 2, 2006 7:05 PM
Forget the head gear, forget the Moslem "lawmakers," focus on the 6th Pillar of Islam.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at November 2, 2006 9:44 PM
Take them off, take them all off. I'm sick of this already. We should be able to just ban the stupid thing! Enough already with all this nonsense. We are the West. Let them know who is boss, if they don't like it they can leave.
Posted by: pigtails not veils at November 2, 2006 11:53 PM
Niqab, hijab -it really is a pain having to learn these bizarrw and outlandish terms. Gladstone seems to have been expressing something of the same sentiment in his pamphlet of 1879 attacking Disraeli's backing of the Turks in Bulgaria:
"Let the Turks now carry away their abuses, in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and Yuzbachis, their Kaimakans and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out..."
Posted by: wallyUK at November 3, 2006 2:02 AM
There is nothing wrong with a woman covering her head. Religious Jewish women do it all the time. And as a writer above mentioned, so do Amish women. There are much more dangerous aspects of Islam to be concerned about than head coverings.
Posted by: TeachESL at November 3, 2006 8:34 AM
There is nothing wrong with a woman covering her head
There is if it's a Moslem head inside the cloth. A Jewish poster in here put it so perfectly:
Moslems are people who carry portable theocracies around inside their skulls, ready to activate when finally called upon to sweep aside civil order.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at November 4, 2006 3:54 PM
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