“Women who do not wear head scarves are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists . . .,” states the opening sentence of an April 18 story in the Daily Mail in Britain.

Sadly, nothing unusual there, except that these threats are being made to non-Muslim women. Again, this is not unusual, since that happens throughout much of the Islamic world that imposes rules about dress on all women, regardless of their religion.

What makes the above news so disturbing is the women who are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists for not wearing a hijab (the Muslim head covering) and a veil (the niqab) are non-Muslim women living in . . . wait for it . . . Great Britain. Yes, you read that correctly. NonMuslim women in a free and democratic country are being threatened with violence or death in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of London, no less.

The story states: “An Asian woman who works in a pharmacy in east London was told to dress more modestly and wear a veil or the shop would be boycotted.

“When she went to the media to talk about the abuse she suffered, a man later entered the pharmacy and told her: ‘If you keep doing these things, we are going to kill you.’ ”

The 31-year-old pharmacy clerk has been told to take a “holiday” by the pharmacy owners and she now fears she may lose her job.

The “Talibanesque thugs” are also targeting homosexuals in the neighbourhood of Tower Hamlets, with stickers being plastered on walls saying: “Gay free zone. Verily Allah is severe in punishment.”

This story, and others like it, should put to rest the nonsensical arguments of people who say that the niqab (which leaves just a slit for the eyes) and the burka (which even covers the eyes with a mesh) are just another choice of clothing that women can make. History simply does not back that up. Wherever the niqab becomes common, it eventually becomes mandatory and women are never given a choice of what to wear again. Of the dozens of women I spoke with in Afghanistan in 2003, not one of them said they chose to wear a burka -they were forced to by the Taliban and they hated it.

That’s the problem and that’s, in part, what France is attempting to stop with its ban on face coverings in public, which came into effect on April 11.

In January in England, a London court heard that Mohamed Al-Hakim phoned his cousin, Alya AlSafar, 21, at her west London home issuing a deadline to start re-wearing the hijab or face death.

Last June, right here in Canada, Aqsa Parvez’s father and her brother were sentenced to life in prison for what the judge called the “twisted and repugnant” murder of the 16-year-old for refusing to cover her hair and dress the way they wanted her to.

Parvez was strangled to death in the family’s Mississauga, Ont., home in December 2007. Her father, Muhammad Parvez, and brother Waqas Parvez, 26, pleaded guilty to seconddegree murder.

There are literally dozens of similar stories in western democracies that could be cited.

Tarek Fatah, renowned author and founder of the secular group Muslim Canadian Congress, says he hopes Stephen Harper wins a majority and follows the lead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and bans the burka and niqab.

“The burka and the niqab is the political uniform of the regiments of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a fascist, supremacist organization,” explained Fatah, who was reached in his Toronto hospital room, where he is recovering from life-saving surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his spine.

“You can’t wear a swastika today and not be a Nazi, and the niqab is the swastika of the Muslim Brotherhood,” added Fatah on Tuesday.

“Every woman who wears a burka by choice in the West is a supporter of Islamic fascism, believes in jihad and desires the implementation of sharia law and the destruction of western civilization. There is not one of these women who will say that they are against sharia and they’re against jihad,” he said. “So, we’re dealing with a dress code of a fascist organization that has in its gunsights, the West.”

Nevertheless, our Supreme Court has ruled that it’s unconstitutional, for instance, to ban the Hells Angels criminal organization members from wearing their colours. The big difference, however, is the Hells Angels don’t want every other person on the streets to also wear their uniform. If Islamo-fascists have their way or become the majority, even in a small neighbourhood like Tower Hamlets, they will impose their oppressive dress code on all women, regardless of their individual beliefs. Therein lies the difference.

In Canada, we identify one another by our faces. We are not forced to carry government-issued identification, like in all Islamo-fascist states. Therein lies the biggest difference of all.

Source : Calgary Herald