a judge decides that he won't allow a woman into the public gallery of a hastings courtroom, for the terrible crime of wearing a headscarf. the basis apparently being that hats are not allowed in a courtroom. i don't need to say much about that, given that the race relations commissioner has stepped in, the opposition spokesperson on ethnic affairs has a press release out (but interestingly, silence from the ministers of ethnic affairs and women's affairs ie hon pansy wong), and the judge has admitted he made a mistake:
Judicial Communications advisor Neil Billington was reported in the Dominion Post today stating the incident was the result of Judge Rea's "mistaken assumption of what was occurring in the courtroom''.
He had required the removal of Ms Ali because of her association with her brother, who had just been removed, and assumed her headgear was a demonstration of protest.
He did not have any objection to the wearing of Muslim headgear in court.
so do we need a poll on stuff about the issue? nope, not going to link to it nor tell you what the options are. but i just don't see what exactly a poll like this is supposed to achieve. do we really need to prove yet again that some people don't like muslims? and don't think muslim women should have the choice to cover their hair in particular situations? yeah, i think we know that already.
4 comments:
Ooh! Either it's a coincidence or Joris totally lifted 'the nun test' from my comment on his facebook page... hee hee.
I'm having some serious issues with the race-baiting going on at Stuff recently. This poll is just one example, reading the commentary about the Michael Laws vs School Kids is another. They're letting a lot of really nasty isht through under the guise of Free Speech and freedom of the press.
Stuff, and the Herald Your Views, is really becoming the haven of the rejects from talkback.
The court of NZ law is the highest
authority in the land. It is above
all the bizarre traditions of the religious and the imagined commands of their invisible ruler.
I wouldn't pay much attention to the polls on Stuff. They're easily (and frequently) manipulated and it's not too hard to write a script to automate the whole process either. Tories have always done this sort of stuff, they rigged all the text polls back in November too.
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