At 3, She Testified About Her Rape. Now, She Needs A School

(Swathi Sukumar is a practicing lawyer before the Delhi High Court and is the Country Director of iProbono, an organization that handled Amal's case before the High Court.)
In the life of a lawyer, few moments are more satisfying than when justice is done: a hard-fought, challenging court battle that ends well, changing the law of the land.
On Monday (October 13), the Delhi High Court delivered a landmark judgment in a case involving the sexual assault of a 3-year-old child we call Amal. The daughter of construction workers, she was raped by a neighbor and the assault left her with wounds that would require at least three reconstructive surgeries. 

In February, a Delhi trial court dismissed Amal's clear testimony on the basis that she was an incompetent witness, and disregarded her repeated identification of her rapist. 
On appeal, the Delhi High Court reversed the trial court's decision and held that there were no circumstances to disregard the child's evidence. The Court laid down detailed guidelines on how a child ought to be interviewed. The decision will undoubtedly lead to more sensitive treatment of children within the criminal justice system and will encourage fair trials. In every way, the verdict is a grand victory.
This is a story of the triumph of good over evil. This is a story of what competent lawyers can do for a cause. But it is also a story of the extraordinary resilience and strength of one woman: Amal's mother, Munira (not her real name).
Since 2012, when Amal was assaulted, Munira, 24, and by any measure severely under-weight at just 40 kgs, has been the sole care-giver for her three children. Her neighbours turned against her early into the police investigation which included violent interrogation.

Amal's father suffers from a mild mental disability and Munira's in-laws wanted to have nothing to do with Amal, by then a 4-year-old who was forced, as a result of her sexual assault, to carry around a colostomy bag that hung outside her body to manage her digestive functions.

Munira worked 10-hours a day at construction sites, on as many days as she could find someone willing to employ her, to support her three children, the oldest of whom was Amal. Munira has personally visited the police station, the Magistrate's court and sat through an entire criminal trial with no family support and no money. 

In the course of her cross-examination, Amal was asked to show how she was raped and Munira's heart broke, but she remained dignified and resolute in her endeavor to get justice for her daughter. Amal was asked in court "Gudiya tum jhoot bol rahi ho (child, you are lying, right?) True or not?" When Munira asked the court to see the evidence, she was told, "Don't interrupt."
It was Munira's exceptional strength that brought her to the doors of lawyers in August to file an appeal on her child's behalf. Above all, it was her faith in the law that drove her to continue fighting when the future looked bleak. We must celebrate the fact that this outstanding woman has been successful in navigating our complex and intimidating legal system.
Munira's family has been relocated to a safer area, so Amal can access prompt medical help. But Munira is out of work and her daughter is still not in school because of her medical condition. Munira's illiteracy compounds her inability to seek a better quality of life for her family, which has already undergone severe hardships that have damaged the fabric of their lives.
Munira is looking for employment that will allow her to support her family, once Amal is declared medically fit to attend school. iProbono is trying to secure admission for Amal and her younger brothers in a school that will give them the attention that they deserve. If you're interested in helping Amal's family by offering Munira employment, or school admission for the children, or donating to Amal's family please send in your pledge at HopeForAmal@i-probono.com. Once we receive your pledge, we will contact you with further information on how the contribution will be accepted. Story First Published: October 17, 2014 19:30 IST

Osteoporosis risk higher than heart attack among women

LAHORE: Medical and health experts say 30pc to 50pc of women and 15pc to 30pc of men are likely to suffer a fracture related to osteoporosis in their lifetime.

They were referring to the statistics of the International Osteoporosis Foundation during a seminar organised by a pharmaceutical company in connection with the World Osteoporosis Day at a local hotel here on Friday. The World Osteoporosis Day is observed on Oct 20 every year.

The health experts said worldwide fracture incidences were two to threefold higher than heart attack, stroke and breast cancer among women.

Punjab Health Director General Dr Zahid Pervaiz said of all the complications experienced by the females after their menopause, none was more devastating than osteoporosis. He said the major consequence of the disease was a fracture which was very distressing, leading to high cost, long bed period and dependency on others.

“The risk factors for fracture include low bone mass density, advancing age, history of fracture over age of 50, family history of hip fracture, long-term use of steroids, rheumatoid arthritis and smoking,” Dr Pervaiz said.

Advisor to Chief Minister on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique said the problem had significant economic consequences and high burden of fracture fixation and hospitalisation cost.

“In Pakistan, we have seen rising number of fractures reported, which can be controlled with early diagnosis and prevention of osteoporosis which majority of time is the root of a fracture,” he said.

The medical experts stressed prevention and awareness drives which, according to them, were the only better way to prevent osteoporosis.

Prof Aftab Ahmad, Prof Nader M Akhter, Prof Abu Bakar, Prof Shafique Ahmed Shafaq, Dr Omer Adil and Dr Mazhar Iqbal Chaudhry were also present.

MoU on research: The University of Health Sciences (UHS), Lahore, and the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS), Jamshoro, Sindh, have entered into an agreement to collaborate in research and academics.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed here on Friday by UHS Vice Chancellor retired Maj Gen Prof Muhammad Aslam and LUMHS vice-chancellor Prof Dr Noshad Ahmed Shaikh.

The MoU envisages strengthening of bonds between the two institutions to promote cultural and scholarly interaction, exchange students, teachers, scholars and administrations for study and research, develop curricula and to start programmes for capacity building.

Under the agreement, both institutions will develop research quality in the field of epidemiology and public health besides exploring the opportunity to launch special short term academic programmes and projects for students. Exchange of examination questions is also a part of the agreement.

The UHS vice-chancellor said they would try to transform the MoU into a memorandum of action.

The LUMHS vice-chancellor called it a historical step which would go a long way in improving standard of medical education and research in the county. He said collective efforts are always better than individual efforts and invited UHS faculty to start joint research project using the facilities available at LUMHS.

Later, the delegation visited various departments of the university.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2014

Political parties, civil society shower praise on Malala

PESHAWAR/MINGORA: Political parties and civil society organisations have paid rich tribute to girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai on being honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize.
Civil society activists distributed sweets and youth danced to drumbeats at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday to celebrate the achievement of Malala.
A ceremony in this connection was also held at the press club and addressed among others by ANP general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Strengthening Participatory Organisation’s regional chief Arshad Haroon, Tribal NGOs consortium chairman Zar Ali Khan, Khwendo Kor chairperson Maryam Bibi, minority community representative Asif Bhatti, Lasoona chairperson Rakhshinda Naaz and journalist Shamim Shahid.
Also read: Malala offered Canadian citizenship
Mian Iftikhar said that Pakhtuns were dubbed as terrorists in the past but now it was proved that they were peace loving and against terrorism. He said that Malala was a reflection of the mindset of Pakhtuns who loved education, development and believed in the policy of live and let live.
He said that Punjab government had announced to establish a university after Malala, and asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to follow suit.
On the occasion, Arshad Haroon said the award was in fact a win for Pakhtuns and a defeat for terrorists and extremists. He said that Malala proved that Pakhtuns believed in peace, dialogue, tolerance and development.

---

Youth dance to drumbeat to celebrate Nobel Peace Prize for education activist

---

Maryam Bibi said Malala was daughter of the nation and a pride for all the peace loving people, adding that all the girls across the world should get education and play role in spreading the light of knowledge.
Rakhshinda Naaz said that Malala was now a symbol of peace and education and the award deserved to be celebrated as it was a big success of the nation.
Zar Ali Khan and Shamim Shahid said that the award proved Pakhtuns’ love for knowledge and peace, adding that all those opposing her had faced defeat.
Similarly, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan, Qaumi Watan Party chairman Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, Awami National Party president Asfandyar Wali Khan, Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Saleem Saifullah Khan also congratulated Malala Yousafzai on being honoured with the Noble Peace Prize.
In his message of felicitation, the governor said that the award was not only a recognition of her exemplary contribution to education but also the acknowledgement of the nation’s great sacrifices against terrorism.
Aftab Sherpao said that the prize would encourage all those working for promotion of education in the country. He said Pakhtuns were proud of Malala who stood against all odds to raise voice for education. 
Asfandyar Wali said that the award was a good omen for Pakhtuns and proved that Pakistanis were against terrorists and extremists.
Meanwhile, the people of Swat, the native district of Malala, termed the achievement of the education activist a great success for the entire country.
They said that after the award, the world would know Swat, once affected by militancy, as a place of peace and prosperity.
Ahmad Shah, president of Global Peace Council, told Dawn that soon after the announcement he contacted Ziauddin Yousafzai, father of Malala, who said that he and his family were very happy over the achievement their daughter.
He quoted Mr Yousafzai as saying that the award meant that the world recognised that the people of Swat were peace loving. Mr Yousafzai said that two days ago he talked to Malala over phone and found that she was not very hopeful about winning the peace prize this year compared to the last year when she had a lot of expectations about winning it.
Malala’s father said that she had a plan to construct an elementary college in Shangla and five middle schools in Swat.
Fazal Maula Zahid, president of Rotary Club Swat, said that Malala had participated in many meetings of the club as her father was its active member. He said that responsibilities of Malala had increased after winning the prize as she would now have to be more focused on female education.
He said that Malala should declare Swat as valley of education so people from across the globe could come here for getting education and convey a message of peace to the people of their respective countries.
Mr Zahid also urged Malala to work for establishing an international women university in Swat to promote girls’ education in the valley.
Fakhrul Hassan, cousin of Malala Yousafazi, said that he and his family were too happy over the peace prize win, adding that it was recognition of the struggle of people of Swat for peace. “I was taking lunch with my family when my brother came and told us about Malala’s achievement,” he added.
Farooq, in-charge of Khushal Public School Mingora, said that students of Swat were mostly trying to copy Malala, adding that after the achievement girls students were now more inclined to get higher education and contribute to country’s development.
Published in Dawn, October 11th , 2014

Pakistan’s braveheart Malala Yousafzai

COURAGE is not a rare quality in Pakistan. Adversity that would break most individuals has produced some of our finest — human rights activists, journalists, not to mention ordinary people fighting against formidable odds.
But Malala Yousafzai is a special case; it’s hard to find such courage in a 17-year-old coupled with a clarity of thought and an eloquence that can make cynics catch their breath and the world sit up and take notice.
Yesterday, Pakistan’s braveheart won the Nobel Peace Prize, giving a nation starved of glad tidings and buffeted by crises on multiple fronts, a reason to celebrate.
By awarding the prize to an education rights activist, the Nobel Committee has delivered a symbolic rebuke to the forces of regression typified by the likes of the Taliban, Boko Haram, and the Islamic State that seek to impose a system in which, aside from a slew of other depredations, children — particularly girls — would be denied the right to education; in effect, deprived of a future.
From a young girl simply wanting to go to school in Swat Valley during the savage rule of the Pakistani Taliban, to a global icon who represents the millions of children out of school in the world, whether for reasons of war, militancy or state neglect — Malala’s story is inspirational on many levels.
Even after militants shot her in the head in October 2012 — a shot that veritably rang out across the world — for consistently propagating girls’ education, she did not waver. In fact, the near-fatal attack boosted her profile, although she had to move abroad for treatment and for security reasons. Since then, many international accolades have come her way, including the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Malala’s latest award, while undoubtedly prestigious for Pakistan, should also make us reflect on how the state has failed in its obligations towards the people in many ways.
Purveyors of intolerance and bigotry have been tolerated for too long here. Malala’s own struggle was forged in this environment; the fact that she has to remain abroad testifies to the continuing potency of these forces. And lest we forget, our first Nobel prize winner, Dr Abdus Salam, died away from home, his magnificent achievement ignored in Pakistan, only because he was an Ahmadi. And then there’s education.
With five million children aged five to nine out of school, there is no place better than Pakistan to further Malala’s cause in a meaningful way.
Finally, the fact that the joint peace prize winner is an Indian, Kailash Satyarthi, also for work in child rights, highlights the commonality of issues between India and Pakistan; it would serve their people well if these could take precedence over politics.
As Malala has said so succintly, “I raise my voice not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard.”
Published in Dawn, October 11th , 2014

How WW1 shaped Agatha Christie – and Poirot

Christie's time as a nurse and dispenser in the First World War without doubt informed her choice of poison as the predominant murder weapon in her novels (AGATHA CHRISTIE ARCHIVE)

After 39 years, Hercule Poirot is back in a new novel.

David Suchet as wily Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in 'Appointment with Death' Photo: BBC

Here Kate Weinberg looks at how the First World War shaped his creator

A writer’s life: Agatha Christie wrote most of her novels at her London home in Kensington Photo: Popperfoto/Getty Images

By Kate Weinberg

The elegant drawing rooms and grand country houses of Agatha Christie’s novels might seem a world away from the mud and horror of the trenches, but they are closer than you might think.

For Agatha Christie, both as a person and as a novelist, was forged in the fires of the First World War.

Sophie Hannah, inset, the bestselling novelist who has picked up the baton and is launching the first new Poirot novel in 39 years at the Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay today, agrees. Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective, created by Agatha Christie. Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels, one play (Black Coffee), and more than 50 short stories published between 1920 and 1975.

“People of that era were asking themselves how the war was possible,” she says. “I think that while Christie’s novels provided some brilliant light relief, she was also trying to help them understand it.
“She was trying to say this person has been driven over the edge by this thing, that person by that. This is how an individual was driven to kill.
“Just as a wrong idea can seize a person, it can also seize a group of people, which is often worse as the feelings grow and they can push responsibility to the others. It does make things like war make a bit more sense and become more explicable.”
That’s not to say that she understood the destruction.
“Christie was very much in favour of moderation and keeping your powder dry,” says Hannah. “Both she and Poirot believe that every human life is valuable and precious.”
Given Christie’s own experiences in the war, that’s not surprising. In October 1914, she became one of the 90,000 Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses that enlisted to help in the war.
In a makeshift hospital in Torquay town hall, she washed and cared for seriously wounded patients, attended in the operating theatre during operations and even helped clean up after amputations. “I would wash [away] all the blood,” she later wrote, “and stick [the limb] in the furnace myself.”
Christie’s tone is British stiff-upper lip as she recounts some advice from another nurse: “Everything in life one gets used to and if you can last it out, you’ll have no trouble.” But it is striking that although she went on to become “The Queen of Crime”, there is almost no blood, and certainly no gore, in her books.
Instead she prefers the clean method of poisoning, again, no doubt, influenced by her experiences in the war. After serving as a nurse, she qualified as a dispenser, who mixes the tonics and medicines for prescription. It clearly made a mark: out of the 66 full-length detective novels she wrote, more than half feature poisoning.
But the war did much more than provide her with a cabinet of poisons for a career in crime writing. The war years also unlock the story of Christie herself, the private woman whose life became something of a mystery itself.
Just as a wrong idea can seize a person, it can also seize a group of people, which is often worse as the feelings grow and they can push responsibility to the others. It does make things like war make a bit more sense and become more explicable.” That’s not to say that she understood the destruction.
“Christie was very much in favour of moderation and keeping your powder dry,” says Hannah. “Both she and Poirot believe that every human life is valuable and precious.”
Given Christie’s own experiences in the war, that’s not surprising. In October 1914, she became one of the 90,000 Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses that enlisted to help in the war.
In a makeshift hospital in Torquay town hall, she washed and cared for seriously wounded patients, attended in the operating theatre during operations and even helped clean up after amputations. “I would wash [away] all the blood,” she later wrote, “and stick [the limb] in the furnace myself.”
Christie’s tone is British stiff-upper lip as she recounts some advice from another nurse: “Everything in life one gets used to and if you can last it out, you’ll have no trouble.” But it is striking that although she went on to become “The Queen of Crime”, there is almost no blood, and certainly no gore, in her books.
Instead she prefers the clean method of poisoning, again, no doubt, influenced by her experiences in the war. After serving as a nurse, she qualified as a dispenser, who mixes the tonics and medicines for prescription. It clearly made a mark: out of the 66 full-length detective novels she wrote, more than half feature poisoning.
But the war did much more than provide her with a cabinet of poisons for a career in crime writing. The war years also unlock the story of Christie herself, the private woman whose life became something of a mystery itself.
When the war broke out in 1914, Agatha Miller was a pretty girl engaged to a young man called Archie Christie. He had just been accepted by the RAF and was going to France as a flying officer.
On Christmas Eve 1914 they were married in Archie’s parish church, in their street clothes, while Archie was on leave from the front.
In the passionate love letters Archie wrote to Christie during the war he told her, “I love you much too much – more than ever now – to take any risks. Death only means to me being separated from you.”
During the war, Archie was promoted several times, becoming a Colonel, and in 1918 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and in 1919 Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG).
But as Christie’s novels later attested, a happy ending was hard to find.
A few short years after the war, Archie revealed to her that he had fallen in love with Nancy Neele, one of their friends. It broke Christie’s heart, precipitated her mysterious 11-day disappearance, and as her daughter Rosalind remarked, “she never got over losing him”.
In fact, according to Christie’s only grandchild, Mathew Prichard, she almost never spoke of Archie again.
She was so careful to avoid the subject that Mathew grew up believing her second husband, Max Mallowan, to be his grandfather.
Prichard says: “She avoided the subject of the [First World] war altogether, because that was when my grandfather was alive.”
The centenary of the First World War has prompted a great deal of reflection on, even celebration of, the literature of the times.
But, strangely, the First World War is largely overlooked in the consideration of Christie.
Perhaps this is because her response to the severed limbs and human horror was, like so much else in her life, to disguise it: in her books, death is not violent but artful, it happens not in the trenches but in vicarages, victims are beautiful and well-dressed, corpses are rarely seen and never lingered upon.
After four years in which the world had seen murder turned into an industry, she made it into a work of art. The Telegraph

Commercial sex workers raise Rs. 10,321 fund for J-K flood victims

Commercial sex workersof Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra have raised funds to help flood-hit victims of Jammu and Kashmir.
The workers have contributed Rs. 10,321 to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund and handed over the contribution to resident deputy collector Ahmednagar Rajendrakumar Patil here today, trustee of NGO Snehalaya, Suman Tribhuvan, told PTI.
Women sex workers of Ahmednagar have contributed to help people in every catastrophe for the last 25 years, which includes 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, 2001 Gujarat earthquake, Kargil war, for tsunami victims, drought in Maharashtra and Uttarakhand landslide calamity last year, Suman said.

"Women here fight for their rights but they are equally responsible towards their duties and each time whenever there has been a disaster, they have contributed. Last year, they had raised Rs. 1 lakh for Uttarakhand victims," she added. As many as 200 workers have raised the money by contributing from their pay.

burqa and the niqab un-Islamic -Oxford Imam

Dr Taj Hargey has called for Britain to follow in the footsteps of France and Belgium and ban all face-coverings in public places.

Thu, July 17, 2014

A British Imam has launched a nationwide campaign to ban the Burqa (full body Islamic covering) in Britain. The campaign aims to ban the wearing of face coverings in all public places, including the burqa and the niqab, which he describes as un-Islamic.He argus that it is a 'Saudi-Afghani fad' imposed on British Muslims, who are predominnantly of Pakistani origin, where the burqa was never traditionally worn. 

Dr Taj Hargey is the leader of the Oxford Islamic Congregation, and the head of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford (MECO). He is calling for Britain to follow France and Belgium in banning the wearing of the Burqa in public places, following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (EHRC) that the ban was legal. He has long been a proponent of progressive integration of the Muslim Community into British society and a strident opponent of Islamic extremism.

The French law, introduced in 2010, bans all face covering in public, including ski masks and balaclavas.Isabelle Niedlispacher, a representative of the Belgian government which banned the burqa in 2011 said that social cohesion was the main issue. She argued that "It's about social communication, the right to interact with someone by looking them in the face and about not disappearing under a piece of clothing."

A French Muslim woman appealed the law taking the case to the ECHR, but the ECHR upheld the ban. The final verdict stated "the Court accepted that the barrier raised against others by a veil concealing the face in public could undermine the notion of 'living together'." These developments encouraged Dr Hargey to launch his own campaign. As he himself notes, his is the first Muslim lead campaign calling for a ban.

Dr Hargey made no attempts to hide his contempt for the Burqa. In the official announcement of the campaign on the MECO website he said of the burqa "This archaic tribal rag is pre-Islamic and non-Qur'anic, and ipso facto un-Muslim " The announcement states that it is completely untrue that the burqa is integral to Islam and that such an idea was the result of propaganda from hardline sects.

He noted that "It is forbidden for Muslim women going on pilgrimages to Mecca to cover their faces. So if such a pre-Islamic practice is banned in Islam’s holiest site, why on earth would it be required on the streets of Britain?"

The campaign aims initially to gain 100,000 signatures for a petition launched on the UK government website. According to British law if a petition reaches over 100,000 signatures it must be discussed by Parliament in the House of Commons .In his piece in the Daily Mail explaining the campaign, Dr. Hargey argued that: "Everyone in Britain, including Muslims, should oppose the insidious spread of this vile piece of clothing, which imprisons women, threatens social harmony, fuels distrust, has grave health implications and is a potent security risk."

He called on everyone to participate, saying "We invite both Muslims and our other fellow citizens to work together to rid Britain of this alien cultural monstrosity." This is not the first time that calls to ban the Burqa have surfaced in Britain. In September 2013 Birmingham Metropolitan College banned face coverings so that staff, students and visitors would be "easily identifiable at all times." They were forced into an embarrassing climb down a mere 48 hours later after an online petition organized by Muslim students was circulated online. Tory MP Philip Hollobone called the U-turn a shame, saying "People are frightened of standing up and speaking out in this discussion because of political correctness and the intolerant reaction from Muslim groups who jump up and down with fury whenever anyone says that it makes sense for people to go around with their faces perfectly visible to everyone else which is the way human beings were created in the first place." 

Later in the month a minister at the Home Office made national headlines when he said that Britain needs a national debate on whether or not to ban the veil. "There is genuine debate about whether girls should feel a compulsion to wear a veil when society deems children to be unable to express personal choices about other areas like buying alcohol, smoking or getting married" said the Minister, Liberal Democrat Jeremy Browne.

“We should be very cautious about imposing religious conformity on a society which has always valued freedom of expression.” 

Conservative MPs argued against the veil as well. Dr. Sarah Wollaston, the MP for Totnes said that the burqa was "deeply offensive" and "makes women invisible."

She called for it to be banned in schools and hospitals saying "We must not abandon our cultural belief that women should fully and equally participate in society." 

This issue has become more and more prominent in the British public discourse, amid rising fears over returning British Jihadis from the war in Syria and the so called 'Trojan-Horse' scandal, in which certain state funded British schools were taken over by hardline Islamist groups and used to preach radical ideologies and segregate Muslim pupils.

The British Government has also adopted a more robust approach to tackling Islamic extremism, mulling a ban the Muslim Brotherhood and banning three groups affiliated to radical hate preacher Anjem Choudary. 

One article in the Telegraph written June 11 clearly set out the changed mood, arguing, in the wake of the Trojan-Horse scandal for the supremacy of the rule of law with the headline 'We Were Wrong: Not All Cultures Are Equal' 

In that piece the writer, Alison Pierce, references the difference between the treatment of women and girls in Britain to places like Pakistan, saying "the reason irate Pakistani patriarchs are not chucking bricks at their errant daughters in the Birmingham Bull Ring is because Britain has a basically uncorrupt police force, a robust judiciary and an enlightened, hard-won system of liberal values that regards women and girls as equals, not third-class citizens."

She demanded that Britain maintain those traditions, saying "For years, we all turned a blind eye to the segregation of Muslim pupils. Now it is time to stand up to propagators of barbarism and ignorance."

Dr Hargey expressed similar concerns in calling to ban the burqa alongside other face coverings. He called the Burqa "an affront to the concept of gender parity in the UK."  He said that men had imposed the burqa on women, saying it was a pre-Islamic practice dating back to the era of Cyrus the Great that the aristocracy used to prevent their women from being "seen by the peasantry." In the official campaign announcement he called it a "non-Qur’anic patriarchal custom" 

He also recognized that the burqa makes many people feel uncomfortable and increases social divisions, but that the government was too fearful to act. He said: "Despite growing concern from the British public, our pusillanimous politicians have refused to address the burgeoning prevalence of the burka in our midst, as they fear accusations of Islamophobia from the militant fundamentalists and their PC (politically correct) allies."

http://m.clarionproject.org/news/oxford-imam-calls-burqa-archaic-tribal-rag-calls-ntl-ban