on Thursday, July 5, 2012
Until the vote by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) here, players were prevented from wearing a headscarf, or hijab, at the sport's highest level for safety reasons and on religious grounds.
Critics said the ban promoted inequality at the highest level of the world's most popular game.
See also "FIFA lift ban on Islamic headscarves", Reuters, 5 July 2012
on Friday, June 29, 2012
A campaign to allow Muslim women football players to wear headscarves was boosted on Friday when the chairman of FIFA's medical committee said he has withdrawn his opposition.
The change of medical opinion from Michel D'Hooghe was a key step before FIFA's law-making body could approve two scarf designs when it meets in Zurich next week. "The problems I had (with scarves) were medical, and I don't have those problems anymore," D'Hooghe told The Associated Press.
The panel, known as IFAB, asked in March for further medical advice on whether new designs were safe for women players to wear. Headscarves were banned from FIFA competitions for safety reasons in 2007.
Last month, D'Hooghe said his committee's tests suggested scarves "represented a danger" to players who could sustain head and neck injuries, or overheat.
That drew an angry response from his FIFA executive committee colleague, Prince Ali of Jordan, who has led a year-long campaign seeking respect for Islamic cultural tradition, and creating more opportunities for women to play, by overturning the ban. Prince Ali said he was "quite shocked," and produced medical research which challenged FIFA's position.
On Friday, D'Hooghe said he would no longer object to the designs after "more discussions" in recent weeks. "There is no risk of strangulation. I was asked for a medical opinion, and the discussions I had were purely medical," said the Belgian doctor, who did not elaborate on what swayed his opinion.
IFAB could accept one or both designs -- one from the Netherlands, which uses quick-release velcro fasteners, and a Canadian scarf fixed with light magnets.
However, D'Hooghe cautioned that the scarves must still abide by football's rules regarding players' equipment. "Those aspects are the uniformity of players' equipment and the idea of religious and political statements," D'Hooghe said. "That is a discussion for other people."
Law 4 of football states that "basic compulsory equipment must not have any political, religious or personal statements."
Still, Prince Ali's campaign has been backed by the United Nations, the Nobel Prize Committee and the global players' union, FIFPro.
The IFAB panel which will decide the issue next Thursday includes the four British football associations, which have one vote each, and FIFA which has a four-vote bloc. Six votes are needed to change a rule.
Associated Press, 29 June 2012
on
Some French airports have begun to ask headscarf-wearing women to take off their scarves for security reasons, which has spurred criticism from Muslims in the country, who find the practice a discriminatory one.
The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) has announced that Nantes Atlantique Airport has made it obligatory for headscarf-wearing women to take off their scarves and place them in the X-ray machine along with their other belongings.
The practice was put into effect two weeks ago by the SGA, the company responsible for Nantes Atlantique Airport's security. Women affected by the new rules requested that they be allowed to take off their headscarves in a special room staffed only by women, but the request was denied. The women were told that they must place their headscarves on the conveyor going through the X-ray machine if they wanted to avoid missing their plane.
The SGA defended their actions, claiming that dangerous materials could be hidden under the headscarves, which has triggered outrage in France's Muslim community.
According to EU airport security regulations, security staff do not have the authority to ask women to take their headscarves off.
Narin Yüksel, one of the women who were asked to remove their headscarves at Nantes Atlantique Airport, said it was the first time she faced such discrimination in the 30 years she's lived in the country. "I am 65. What could there be under the headscarf of a 65-year-old woman? They told me that I would not be able to board my plane if I don't take off my headscarf," she told Today's Zaman.
Yüksel's daughter Hatice said security officials at the airport did not even allow her mother to drop her headscarf to her shoulder, saying that the headscarf should be placed in the X-ray machine. "When we asked them to do the security check in a special room, they threatened to call the police if my mom didn't take off her headscarf," she said.
The CCIF said the new rule has been implemented not only at Nantes Atlantique Airport but also at Merignac Airport in Bordeaux after they received complaints from people using that airport.
The French Muslim Council (CFCM), which is tied to the French Interior Ministry, condemned the new security procedure and called on Interior Minister Manuel Valls to initiate an investigation into the case.
Union Des Associations Turques du Grand Ouest (UNATGO) President İsa Sevencan told Today's Zaman that they contacted Nantes Governor Christian de Lavernée and that he promised to put an end to the discriminatory practice. "We will not allow such actions, which threatens our ability to coexist, to happen again," Sevencan said.
Last week, a Turkish citizen, Kübra Kağıtçı, was not allowed into a bank in Belfort due to her headscarf. The number of Islamophobic attacks on headscarf-wearing women has been increasing in France in recent years. In 2011, 94 percent of Islamaphobic attacks in the country targeted women wearing headscarves.
The wearing of headscarves was banned at all French primary and high schools in 2004, but headscarves are still allowed at universities.
on Saturday, May 26, 2012
Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, whose presentation to soccer's law-making body IFAB six weeks ago saw the approval of the headscarf pending health and safety checks, said he was "shocked and disturbed" by the evidence presented on Thursday. "If it is true, I would accept it, but I believe it was without foundation," he told reporters.
The IFAB, or International Football Association Board, comprises FIFA and the four British Home Associations.
Michel D'Hooghe of Belgium, the head of FIFA's medical committee, said he would only recommend to the extraordinary IFAB meeting on July 5 in Zurich that extra tests should be carried out on the headscarf which is crucial to millions of Muslim women playing the game all over the world.
Prince Ali, the youngest member of FIFA's executive committee, declined to comment when asked if he faced opposition from the committee's older, more conservative officials but there was no hiding his anger when he spoke on Friday.
"I was shocked when I heard about Dr D'Hooghe's press conference on Thursday. We covered all the issues raised including heat coming out of the head, breathable material, the neck issue. I was very disturbed by the comments he made. I am usually not very emotional but this is very important.
"There are women serving in combat zones across the world and many of them are wearing the headscarves so I am disturbed by this being used as an argument. All we are asking is for women to be allowed to play football. This affects many, many Muslim women. I hope this issue is being treated with the same respect and seriousness that other issues are, for example goal-line technology."
Although IFAB has approved the headscarf, pending further tests in March, the decision will be reviewed in July and FIFA's quartet on the law-making body can change between meetings. Prince Ali's fear is that opponents of the hijab could sit on the July meeting and block approval of the headscarf because a law change needs a 6-2 majority from the board.
He accepted that further testing may be needed in the future but added: "I am hoping, at the very least, IFAB will allow a proper evaluation and that these players will be allowed to play in it on the field. If the medical committee and FIFA wants to monitor further, let them do it.
"Muslim women can use it at confederation level but they cannot, for example, use it at the highest level in the women's World Cup or the Olympic Games. And at any level there have been no reported cases of injuries in Asia and Africa, or anywhere in the world."
Prince Ali said independent institutes and designers from Netherlands and Canada had presented evidence to D'Hooghe and FIFA's chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak but when the designers were told what happened on Thursday they were equally shocked. "They asked us what on earth he (D'Hooghe) was talking about," he said.
See also Associated Press, 25 May 2012