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France Sets Up Burka Commission

June 23, 2009

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8114590.stm

France is to set up a commission to study the extent of burka-wearing in the country, after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the veils reduced dignity.

He said the burka - a garment worn by Muslims that covers the body from head to toe - "deprived women of identity".

The French National Assembly has appointed 32 lawmakers on a fact-finding mission to look...

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Muslim Minority Suffers Under Harsh Myanmar Rule

June 22, 2009

Author: Michael Sullivan

Source: Southern California Public Radio

http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/06/22/muslim-minority-suffers-under-harsh-myanmar-rule/

Myanmar is a place of misery for many of its citizens. Political dissent isn't tolerated by the repressive, often brutal military rulers. And neither, it seems, is the country's ethnic Muslim minority, known as the Rohingya. NPR's Michael Sullivan visited the country...

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Sarkozy Backs Drive to Eliminate the Burqa

June 22, 2009

Author: Doreen Carvajal

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/europe/23france.html

President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed Parliament on Monday, laying out a vision of France that included a withering critique of burqas as an unacceptable symbol of “enslavement.”

Speaking at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy confronted one of the most hotly debated social issues in France, saying there was...

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In Iran, Both Sides Seek to Carry Islam’s Banner

June 21, 2009

Author: Neil MacFarquhar

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/world/middleeast/22security.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, ended his prayer sermon in tears on Friday, invoking the name of a disappeared Shiite prophet to suggest that his government was besieged by forces of evil out to destroy a legitimate Islamic government.

The...

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France Split Over Plan to Outlaw Burqa

June 20, 2009

Author: John Lichfield

Source: The Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-split-over-plan-to-outlaw-burqa-1710747.html

A suggestion that the full-length veil, or burqa, might be outlawed in France split the French government down the middle yesterday.

The government's official spokesman, Luc Chatel, said that legislation might be introduced to ban full-length veils if...

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Even Non-Religious Muslims Forming New Groups In France

June 20, 2009

Author: Elizabeth Bryant

Source: USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-06-20-muslim-france_N.htm

New Muslim groups are mushrooming in France, reflecting a growing disenchantment with the country's main Islamic organization and an openness to non-practicing Muslims.

The latest group, launched June 12, is a federation of some 40 Muslim associations dubbed Mosaic. It plans to offer a voice for secular Muslims...

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Everyone In the Pool! (Not You, Guys)

June 17, 2009

Author: Omar Sacirbey

Source: Religion News Service

http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/everyone_in_the_pool_not_you_guys/

&amWhen Zahra Khan arrived at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from her native Ottawa, Canada, in 2005, she looked for a swimming pool where she wouldn’t have to worry about showing too much skin.

The only options were mixed-gender pools, which Khan felt would...

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Defiance Grows As Iran’s Leader Sets Vote Review

June 15, 2009

Author: Robert F. Worth and Nazila Fathi

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/world/middleeast/16iran.html

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in silence through central Tehran on Monday to protest Iran’s disputed presidential election in an extraordinary show of defiance from a broad cross section of society, even as the nation’s supreme leader called for a formal review of results he had endorsed...

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