French police force Muslim woman to remove burkini top at beach

August 24, 2016

Paris, Aug 24: The burkini, a body-concealing women's swimsuit that fits an Islamic dress code, has stirred a controversy in France.

In one of the recent cases of crackdown, a Muslim woman was forced to remove her burkini at a Nice beach.

france

Photos have emerged showing police confronting the woman in Nice on Tuesday. At least four police officers accosted a woman who was resting on the shore at the town's Promenade des Anglais, the scene of last month's Bastille Day lorry attack. Then she appeared to remove a blue garment.

A mother of two told AFP on Tuesday she had been fined on the beach in the resort of Cannes wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf.

Her ticket, seen by AFP, read that she was not wearing "an outfit respecting good morals and secularism".

"I was sitting on a beach with my family. I was wearing a classic headscarf. I had no intention of swimming," said the 34-year-old who gave only her first name, Siam.

A witness to the scene, Mathilde Cousin, confirmed the incident.

"The saddest thing was that people were shouting 'go home', some were applauding the police. Her daughter was crying," she told AFP.

Top French court to examine burkini ban

A ban on the burkini swimsuit by several French towns will come before France's highest administrative court on Thursday, the tribunal said.

The Human Rights League (LDH) is appealing a decision by a lower court in the Riviera city of Nice which upheld a ban on the outfit by the town of Villeneuve-Loubet.

Villeneuve-Loubet, just west of Nice, was among the first of some 15 French towns to ban the burkini, triggering a fierce debate in France and elsewhere about the wearing of the full-body swimsuit, women's rights and secularity.

The Nice tribunal ruled on Monday that the ban in Villeneuve-Loubet was "necessary, appropriate and proportionate" to prevent public disorder after a succession of jihadists attacks in France, including one in Nice on July 14.

The burkini was "liable to offend the religious convictions or (religious) non-convictions of other users of the beach," and "be felt as a defiance or a provocation exacerbating tensions felt by" the community, it added.

The ruling by the State Council, France's highest administrative court, will provide a legal precedent for towns to follow around the country.

The ban has raised questions over what constitutes unacceptable beachwear: the actual trademarked full-body swimsuit - much like a wetsuit but with a head covering - or merely being fully clothed on the seashore.

One of the world's most secular countries, France strongly separates religion and public life, and overt religious symbols or clothing are considered incompatible with French values.

Islamic dress has long been a subject of debate in France, which was the first European country to ban the Islamic face veil in public in 2010, six years after outlawing the headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols in state schools.

However ordinary citizens are allowed to wear the headscarf in public.

The LDH and other rights groups believe the burkini ban is a "serious and illegal attack on numerous fundamental rights" including freedom of religion.

"It is the expression of a political project, a counter-society, based notably on the enslavement of women," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said of the burkini Wednesday.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 25,2020

Hubei, Mar 25: As a bus departed from its terminus at Hankou Railway Station at 5:25 am Wednesday morning, Wuhan started to resume bus service after nine weeks of lockdown.

Apart from a driver, a safety supervisor was also on each bus, whose duty was to make sure all passengers are healthy.
"For those who do not use smartphones, they should bring with them a health certificate issued by the health authorities," said Zhou Jingjing, a safety supervisor aboard bus No. 511 departing from the Wuchang Railway Station complex.
The once hardest-hit city in central China's Hubei Province during the COVID-19 outbreak took unprecedented traffic restrictions on Jan 23. All of its public transport and all outbound flights and trains had been suspended in an attempt to contain the virus within the region.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
March 15,2020

Tehran, Mar 15: Two hundred and thirty-four Indians stranded in coronavirus-hit Iran have arrived in India, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday.

The batch comprises 131 students and 103 pilgrims, he said.

“234 Indians stranded in Iran have arrived in India; including 131 students and 103 pilgrims. Thank you Ambassador Dhamu Gaddam and @India_in_Iran team for your efforts. Thank Iranian authorities,” Jaishankar tweeted.

The third batch of Indians from Iran arrived early Sunday. A second batch of 44 Indian pilgrims had arrived from Iran on Friday.

Iran is one of the worst-affected countries by the coronavirus outbreak and the government has been working on plans to bring back Indians stranded there.

The first batch of 58 Indian pilgrims were brought back from Iran on Tuesday.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 19,2020

Washington, Feb 19: Sri Srinivasan, a prominent Indian-American judge, has created history by becoming the first person of South Asian descent to lead a powerful federal circuit court considered next only to the US Supreme Court.

Srinivasan, 52, became the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

An Obama appointee who has already been considered for a Supreme Court seat twice, donned the mantle of the chief judge of the DC federal court circuit on February 12.

Srinivasan succeeded Judge Merrick Garland, who has been a member of the DC Circuit since 1997 and Chief Judge since 2013. He will remain on the bench, a press release said.

Notably, Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court by the then president Barack Obama was blocked by Senate Republicans in 2016.

Srinivasan, was appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in May 2013.

He was the first ever Indian-American to be appointed to the second most powerful court of the US.

Neomi Rao, nominated by President Donald Trump, is the second Indian American on this powerful judiciary bench.

History being made on the DC Court of Appeals. Congratulations, Judge Srinivasan! Senator Mark Warner said.

Congratulations to Judge Sri Srinivasan on becoming the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit! A milestone for the Indian-American/Kansan community (and yet another piece of evidence my family can use that I'm underachieving), US Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai said.

According to The Washington Post, Srinivasan spoke recently about his path to the bench at an event celebrating women in the law, a field where men still dominate leadership positions.

"Everybody doubts their belonging and worthiness in some measure. I definitely did and still do. This is just going to be a part of the thing when you're looking out in the world in which everyone isn't like you. It's natural to doubt whether you belong and whether you're worthy, he said, "but you do belong and you are worthy.

Born in Chandigarh, and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, he received a B.A. from Stanford University, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Following graduation, he served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the US Solicitor General, and as a law clerk to US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

From 2011 until his appointment to the US Court of Appeals, Judge Srinivasan served as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States.

He has argued 25 cases before the US Supreme Court. He has also taught appellate advocacy at Harvard Law School as well as a seminar on civil rights statutes and the Supreme Court at Georgetown University Law Center.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.