I must say that I really admire Asma abdol-hamid courage for standing in front of these obstacles and refusing to take off her hijab…..if women are not allowed to wear hijab in parliament , then I guess Jews should also not allowed to wear the kippah or yarmulka  !!

COPENHAGEN –  With a headscarf elegantly draped over her hair, Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a Palestinian-born Dane, has sparked a heated debate in Denmark by declaring that she would wear her veil in parliament if elected in 2009.
A member of the ex-communist Unity List, Abdol-Hamid has a good chance of becoming what could be the first veiled Muslim in Europe to be voted into parliament. The 25-year-old social worker and former television host from the Danish city of Odense is known for her commitment to politics and equal rights, as well as her headscarf and her refusal to shake hands with men.
But the prospect of a woman in parliament wearing the traditional headscarf, or hijab, has further disrupted sensibilities in Denmark, a country still shaken by last year’s Mohammed cartoons row that swelled from a domestic Danish affair into a worldwide crisis pitting Muslim values against Western ideals.
Muslims make up 3.5 percent of Denmark’s population of 5.4 million.
A recent poll showed 48 percent of Danes believe Muslim women have the right to wear a headscarf in parliament but the same number are opposed to the idea, with 4 percent undecided.
A spokesman for the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), Soeren Krarup, was among the first to react to Abdol-Hamid’s pledge, calling her headscarf a “totalitarian symbol” similar to “the Nazi swastika.”
And a DPP member of the European Parliament, Mogens Camre, said Abdol-Hamid “needed psychiatric treatment.”
But harsh words have not deterred Abdol-Hamid, who moved to Denmark at the age of five with her Palestinian parents. She has rejected her critics’ view that she is an oppressed woman and defends her “right to be different.”
She was recently designated by her party as a candidate for the Copenhagen constituency ahead of the February 2009 general election, and polls show she is well-placed to win a seat in the national assembly.
Although other Muslim women have won seats in European parliaments - in Belgium and Bulgaria - none have worn the veil.
In secular Turkey, which straddles the Western and Muslim worlds and hopes to one day become a member of the European Union, parliament was thrown into an uproar in 1999 when a member of a now-defunct Islamist party showed up wearing her headscarf to take her parliamentary oath.
She was prevented from doing so as lawmakers protested loudly, and shortly thereafter she left Turkey.
Abdol-Hamid is confident that things will turn out better for her; she is used to breaking new ground.
A poised young woman with a broad smile, she made Danish headlines last year when she became the first television host in Denmark to wear a Muslim headscarf.
But the head of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjaersgaard, whose anti-immigrant party has grown into a political force to be reckoned with, is not convinced by Abdol-Hamid’s self-assurance.
Kjaersgaard said she “feels pity” for a woman who “tries to make everyone believe that the veil gives her freedom,” adding that the headscarf is “often imposed on very young, innocent girls by authoritarian men.”
Abdol-Hamid insisted that is not the case for her.
“I am free with this piece of material on my head. It is a choice that I consider to be right. And I prefer to greet men by placing my hand on my heart. But I would never insist that others do it,” she said.
For her, winning a seat in parliament is “a way for a Danish Muslim woman to show what she is capable of, and to fight for her ideas such as the struggle for equality between men and women.”
She said she believed firmly in “the separation of religion and politics,” and has said that she would not ask for a prayer room in parliament if elected.
While criticism of her has been harsh, she does have backers.
Several Danish imams have called on Muslims to vote for Abdol-Hamid but most of her support comes from ethnic Danes on the left-wing.
Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen, a member of the opposition Radical Party and a former culture minister who was scandalized by far-right attacks, recently greeted journalists and press photographers wearing a headscarf.
She insisted on Danes’ “right to be different” and stressed the importance of freedom of expression and the need to counterbalance the “nationalist and closed-minded” far-right which “demonizes Muslims who wear headscarves.”
“What is important is not what we have on our heads but the opinions we express,” she said.
Gerner Nielsen has, however, been criticized by a former party colleague, Naser Khader, a moderate Muslim who accuses her of “playing into the hands of Islamists” - a point of view shared by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Blair announced that he’ll be buggering off this summer. Good riddance I hear you say…ah yes, but hold yer horses a minute, who’s going to stop Bush from bombing media stations? Especially a certain Aljazeera in Qatar, a country allied to the U.S.
No one? not even Gordon brown? A shame really, I liked Aljazeera, especially all the Jerry Springer stlye fights and verbal abuse in the debates programmes.

Oh well, it seems to be another case of “you never miss it till it’s gone away”. Bye bye Mr. Blair, we’ll miss how you steadfastly supported the U.S while it bombed people and invaded countries. Who can forget all the good times we had together? Iraq, Guantanamo, AbuGhreb, the C.I.A abductions and tortures….oh those were the times, we had so much fun. And now forever shall they be assigned to history, as part of your legacy to the world. A legacy of a shriveled pathetic man, who pursued his religious ideology with Machavelian zeal, to the point of murder and destruction, disregarding the wishes of his own people, and readily sacrificing their sons in a pointless war. Your average run of the mill despot I’d say, but chillingly reminiscent of his own sworn enemy, AlQaeda.

“Blair” ponder that word carefully…..say it again slowly, relishing all the sylables…. Bbbb-Laaaayy-rrrr …. what does it remind you of? don’t know? clueless? Here’s an interesting fun experiment you can try, turn on your tape recorder, and record the previous Bbbb-Laaaayy-rrrr. Now play it back to your grandma, or favourite relative, which ever happens to be closer, ask them what they think that sound is…..

9 out of 10 times the answer will be: ” sounds like a sick dog vomiting a turd it’s just eaten”…(the other 1 time your chosen relative would have been too deaf to hear it, repeat experiment and change relative).

Footnotes:

Don’t bomb us please, Aljazeera staff say

Blair’s antics

Follow the trial of memo leakers

Maybe I wouldn’t be so upset if Segolene Royal wasn’t so hot……. then again when I think of the other candidate, I can see that I’m upset for all the right reasons!

I’m upset because someone who calls the frustrated, unemployed children of immigrants “scum”, and orders their beating and arrest without addressing any of their issues, is hardly worthy of leading the nation which brought Liberty, Equality and Fraternity to the world….then again, when you consider just how much “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” the French brought to their former African colonies, suddenly it becomes fitting that a fascist prick such as Sarkozy should lead the French, keeping in tradition with the long line of countless mad despots that France has had throughout the centuries… louises, Napoleons et all….

So it seems the French are gearing up for another round of native bashing, albeit this time right at home on French soil. Sarkozy is calling on immigrants in France to be “more French” to integrate into French society. Now what in Gods name can that mean? Most of these unfortunate immigrants were born in France, and lived there their entire life. Perhaps it means that they have to wear berets, eat more frogs with their baguettes, and sip Château Margaux while munching on a slice of Camembert on the porch of their cottage located in a quiet rural spot in the countryside? I actually think that most immigrant youth would love to grow up to be wine sipping middle class poofs like their “true French” counterparts, if only someone would give them a job, help them out of their poverty and stop treating them “like scum”.

Congratulations Mr. Sarkozy, yet again the score in Europe, as was before in the States and Australia, is: common sense -nill, bigoted gits- 1…