French rapper stuns fans, makes first TV appearance wearing hijab

[email protected] (Ramdane Belamri , Al Arabiya)
October 3, 2012
French_rapper

Paris, October 3: Amid a nationwide debate in France surrounding attitudes towards the Islamic veil, or hijab, a French rapper has surprised fans by announcing her conversion to Islam and choosing to wear a headscarf.

Mélanie Georgiades, known as Diam's, has gone through what onlookers have described as a “complete transformation” from an image she had prior to 2009.

Since 2009, Diam's had been unusually absent from the mainstream rap scene, prompting more than three years of controversy over her whereabouts, despite making the odd public appearance with her scarf.


But recently the French rapper made her first television appearance with her new image.

Diam's appeared in an exclusive TV interview with French TV station TF1, to talk about a past experience with drugs, including hallucinating narcotics, and being in a mental asylum until she discovered the “serenity of Islam.” The rapper said the religion was introduced to her by coincidence, when she saw a Muslim friend praying.

Diam's, said she has been married for over a year and is a now a new mother, moving far away from her drug-relate past.

In her TV interview she said her “conversion to Islam was the result of a personal conviction, after understanding the religion and reading the Holy Quran.”

When asked about wearing the hijab in France, a country which has banned the niqab, she said: “I believe that I live in a tolerant society, and I don't feel hurt by criticism, but by insults and stereotyping and ready-made judgments.”

Asked by her host about why she is wearing a hijab while many Muslim women don't wear it, and don't find it to be a religious obligation, she answered: “I see it as a divine order or a divine advice, this brings joy to my heart and for me this is enough.”


Stardom?

Diam's said that by converting to Islam she gained comfort, adding that stardom doesn't fit in with her life anymore, adding “this has warmed my heart, as I know now the purpose of my existence, and why am I here on Earth.”

Diam's criticized the media which photographed her coming out of one of the mosques in France, wearing her Hijab and looking at her mobile, preceded by a man in a training suit, which many believed to be her husband.

Discussing how her life was like before her conversion to Islam, Diam's said: “I was very famous and I had what every famous person looks for, but I was always crying bitterly alone at home, and this is what none of my fans had felt.”

She added: “I was heavily addicted to drugs, including hallucinating narcotics and was admitted in mental asylum to recover, but this was in vain until I heard one of my Muslim friends saying ‘I am going to pray for a while and will come back,' so I told her that I want to pray as well.”

Recalling that moment, Diam's said: “it was the first time that I touched the floor with head, and I had a strong feeling that I have never experienced before, and I believe now that kneeling in prayer, shouldn't be done to anyone but Allah.”


Islam, a religion of tolerance

Diam's said that she moved to Mauritius to read the Quran, and have a better understanding of Islam, discovering during her retreat, the tolerance of Islam.

When asked by her host about her views on Islam, and those who commit all the murders and atrocities pretending to be doing it in the name of religion, she answered: “I think we should differentiate between the ignorant and the knowledgeable, and the ignorant should not speak about what he doesn't know, Islam does not allow murdering innocent victims the way we see it nowadays.”



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News Network
May 7,2020

Mumbai, May 7: Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik on Wednesday accused the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka governments of adopting an uncooperative approach in taking back migrant workers hailing from these two states.

Mr Malik said that such a problem has not arisen with other states like Bihar, Rajasthan and another BJP-ruled state, Madhya Pradesh.

"They are creating new hurdles. There are no such problems in case of other states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal though.

"The process (of sending back migrants) has been smooth in the case of these states," Mr Malik said.

The NCP leader alleged that the Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka governments either don't want the people hailing from their states to return or are deliberately creating hurdles so that out of job workers do not go back in big numbers.

The Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka government should understand that the migrant workers are not ready mentally to stay back in Maharashtra and want to return to their native states, Mr Malik said.

The NCP minister said the Maharashtra government has been sending the applications received from migrant workers to the nodal officers of their respective native districts.

Once the nodal officers (of the native districts) concerned approve the applications, the workers are sent back either by trains or private vehicles following their medical tests, Mr Malik added.

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Agencies
March 1,2020

Washington, Mar 1: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a fine of over $200 million for all major US mobile carriers for selling the location data of customers to some agencies.

The Federal Communications Commission today proposed fines against the nation's four largest wireless carriers for apparently selling access to their customers' location information without taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorised access to that information. As a result, T-Mobile faces a proposed fine of more than $91 million, AT&T faces a proposed fine of more than $57 million, Verizon faces a proposed fine of more than $48 million, and Sprint faces a proposed fine of more than $12 million, the FCC said in a statement on Friday.

The Enforcement Bureau of FCC opened this investigation after reports surfaced that a Missouri Sheriff, Cory Hutcheson, used a "location-finding service" operated by Securus, a provider of communications services to correctional facilities, to access the location information of the wireless carriers' customers without their consent between 2014 and 2017.

"American consumers take their wireless phones with them wherever they go. And information about a wireless customer's location is highly personal and sensitive. The FCC has long had clear rules on the books requiring all phone companies to protect their customers' personal information. And since 2007, these companies have been on notice that they must take reasonable precautions to safeguard this data and that the FCC will take strong enforcement action if they don't. Today, we do just that," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

"This FCC will not tolerate phone companies putting Americans' privacy at risk."

The FCC also admonished these carriers for apparently disclosing their customers' location information, without their authorisation, to a third party

The four major US carriers mentioned sold access to their customers' location information to "aggregators," who then resold access to such information to third-party location-based service providers (like Securus).

Although their exact practices varied, each carrier relied heavily on contract-based assurances that the location-based services providers (acting on the carriers' behalf) would obtain consent from the wireless carrier's customer before accessing that customer's location information.

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Agencies
March 29,2020

A shrimp seller at the wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan believed to be the centre of the coronavirus pandemic, may be the first person to have tested positive for the disease, a media report said on Saturday.

The report by the London-based Metro newspaper said that 57-year-old woman, named by the Wall Street Journal as Wei Guixian, was selling shrimp at the Huanan Seafood Market when she developed what she thought was a cold last December.

Chinese digital news outlet, The Paper has said that she may be epatient zero'.

Wei was told by doctors her illness was "ruthless" and other workers at the market had come to the Wuhan Union Hospital with the same symptoms, the Metro newspaper report quoted the outlet as saying.

"Every winter, I suffer from the flu, so I thought it was the flu," the woman was quoted as saying by The Paper news outlet.

The shrimp seller added that she believed she contracted the coronavirus from the shared toilet in the market.

She said the fatal disease would have killed fewer people if the government had acted sooner.

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has confirmed that Wei was among the first 27 people to test positive for the coronavirus.

It said she was one of 24 cases with direct links to the market, the Metro newspaper reported.

Though Wei may be "patient zero", it does not mean she is the first person to have contracted the virus, added the Metro report.

Chinese researchers have claimed that the first person diagnosed with the airborne virus had no contact with the seafood market and was identified on December 1, 2019.

Wei was later quarantined when a connection was made between the bug and the market before recovering in January.

As of Saturday, the global number of coronavirus cases stood at 104,837 with 27,862 deaths, according to the latest update by the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University.

The US has the highest number of cases at 104,837, followed by Italy 86,498 and China 81,948.

Italy has recorded the highest number of fatalities with 9,134 deaths, followed by Spain and China, at 5,138 and 3,299, respectively.

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