Rhys Haynes, Daily Telegraph (London), July 24, 2009
A WOMAN wearing a Muslim headscarf was told by a bus driver to take off her “mask” because it was against the law to wear it on board.
Australian-born mother of two Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech was wearing the pink floral headscarf known as a niqab when she tried to board the HillsBus vehicle at Merrylands Rd, Greystanes.
“As I was stepping on to the bus, the driver said: ‘You can’t get on the bus wearing your mask’,” Ms Ouararhni-Grech told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
After politely telling him that the niqab was not a mask, he insisted, saying: “Sorry, it is the law.”
She said a number of passengers witnessed the incident.
“I told him it wasn’t the law and he said ‘You have to show me your face’,” she said.
“There were others present, there was a lady with a baby who was also disgusted about the discrimination that was brought upon me.
“I was just going to visit my mum. I was born here in Parramatta. I’m Maltese and I’m Muslim because I choose to be Muslim.
“I said to him ‘There’s no difference between me and that lady sitting there who chooses to not wear what I’m wearing’.”
After a heated discussion that lasted more than five minutes, the driver allowed Ms Ouararhni-Grech to travel on the bus.
HillsBus, Sydney’s largest private bus company, has confirmed it is investigating Tuesday’s incident. It is yet to contact Ms Ouararhni-Grech.
“At HillsBus we take complaints seriously and we value our record of customer service,” a spokesperson said yesterday.
“We received the complaint on Tuesday and an internal inquiry is now under way.
“Until the matter is investigated it would obviously not be appropriate to offer further public commentary.”
The HillsBus driver in question was yesterday approached by The Daily Telegraph for an explanation but denied the incident took place.
Ms Ouararhni-Grech said she wanted the bus company to improve driver education, rather than punish the driver. “I’d just like to change his attitude, I just want him to be educated on the subject,” she said.
“I’d be more than happy to go to the company with my sheikh and educate these people about what this exactly is and our beliefs and the reason why.”
A HillsBus source said drivers had the power to deny passengers access to a bus if they believed they were intoxicated or could pose a threat to other passengers.
Drivers are also trained to search around and under their vehicles and how to evacuate a vehicle quickly if the need arises.
Original article
(Posted on July 24, 2009)
Comments
This is still the UK (for now anyway) and the law says that you have to have your face visible. If I were a bus driver or business owner I would not allow anyone in my place of business wearing a niqab. They are not really required in Islam and this is just a way to push your beliefs off on others.
After a heated discussion that lasted more than five minutes, the driver allowed Ms Ouararhni-Grech to travel on the b
This is why the muslims and blacks ALWAYS do this, Whites ALWAYS back down. Often because to not do so, is career/job suicide. The muslim converts are the worst kind too, it didn’t say, but my bet is that she is also BLACK AFRICAN MUSLIM.
This story is from The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, Australia not London.
The driver says nothing happened. This could be similar to the ‘Anita Hill’ type treatment. Where, when liberals don’t like your attitude, or more likely your beliefs (being how an ignorant persons beliefs are the only thing preventing a wonderful utopia from being formed in our very society), and so they challenge that person by trying to get the ‘ignorant’ or not properly progressive person fired or embarrassed, or give them the old ‘cold shoulder’ that supposedly Southern white racists would use.
This incident did not happen in the UK, it happened this week in the western suburbs of Sydney. The woman is not a black African Muslim, she is Australian-born (although she describes herself as ‘Maltese’, probably a convert).
Most people in Sydney are backing the bus driver. Find some comments from Sydney people in the Sydney Daily Telegraph athttp://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/bus-firm-accused-of-thinly-veiled-racism/story-e6freuy9-1225754167210. Example:
Lucee of nsw Posted at 12:48 AM July 24, 2009
I have never understood why Muslims leave their native country, go somewhere else, then whine that “no one understands Islam.” How about they head back to the Middle East, where they won’t stick out like a sore thumb?
I understand it just fine, which is why I don’t subscribe to it. I am a fundamentalist Christian. I believe in God, not Allah (there is a difference).
She doesn’t look Maltese. Anyway, she’s in Australia, not in the Middle East. I would have the veil completely banned, it has nothing to do with religion, just oppression of woman, a part of Middle East culture.
“Australian-born mother of two Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech was wearing the pink floral headscarf known as a niqab when she tried to board the HillsBus vehicle at Merrylands Rd, Greystanes.”
Well, I’m sure because it was “pink” and “floral” makes it non-threatening and OK. It doesn’t matter that it covers most of her face, almost as much as a burqa would. No, no.
I was under the impression that this “niqab” was just a scarf worn over the hair and tied under the chin (as we used to see here in the West with native women) and not a nearly complete covering as shown in a picture in the original article. I have commented befor that I didn’t see anything wrong with a “scarf”, but this is too much.
“I was born here in Parramatta. I’m Maltese and I’m Muslim…”
so, even though born and raised in Australia, she still considers herself Maltese.
Its interesting that so many posters assumed that this incident
One of the most basic unwritten rights a human can possess is the right to like and dislike whomever he chooses. Racism is the universally recognized right of everyone except whites. I am white and if my recognizing the documented fact that the white race is superior to every other race makes me a racist… I don’t care. Besides, the word “racist” never even existed until 1933…
6 — Alexandra wrote at 1:32 AM on July 25:
A bigger problem is the stOOpid American blacks that convert to muslim since the real muslims dislike blacks (all blacks) intensly. Black FEMALE converts are the worst of the worst in that they think they should be able to work in the abaya and hijab or their religious rights are being violated. IN FACT! they are not supposed to be working AT ALL, NOR be out in public without a male relative with them. These black converts are only using those parts of the muslim ideaology that suit their litiguous agenda and aspirations to the “Ghetto Lottery”
To Anonymous:
Re your post(#9), ethnicity trumps geography. The woman is of Maltese ethnicity, even though she was born in Australia. Nothing unusual about that.
Actress Vivian Leigh was born in India, of British parents. Does that make her an Indian? Nope.
Remember those ethnic Indians who were born in Uganda, when it was still a British colony? Idi Amin came to power in 1971, and soon began kicking them out, even though they had lived there for generations. They couldn’t understand why they were forced to leave “their homeland”.
Or, consider the Andretti family. Mario and twin brother Aldo Andretti were born in Italy, and emigrated to the United States and became citizens. Mario’s sons Michael and Jeff were born in Nazareth, PA and Also’s son John was born in Bethlehem, PA. Are the Andretti sons less Italian than their fathers? Nope.
Ethnicity trumps geography. I’ll give you a flesh and blood illustration, closer to home. My mother was born in Czechoslovakia in 1921, of ethnic German parents. She also hated the ethnic Czechs, even though she was an ethnic minority, in THEIR LAND. She hated the Czechs for trying to make the German minority speak Czech in schools. If you told her she was Czech, because she was born in Czechoslovakia, she would actually go off the deep end and scream long and loud and hard, well into the night. I’m not making this up.
“They are basically bargain basement Sicilians with a touch of the Magreb thrown in..” - that comment made me laugh. Yes, some Maltese have done the same here in Sydney.
It always amuses me that Muslims wish to ‘educate’ us about Islam - I think that most of us know all we need to know about Islam. I did study Islamic beliefs - “We all worship the same God”; “Mohammed is in the Bible”; “Jesus was a Muslim”; “we believe in the Bible too, except those corrupt bits that disagree with Mohammed’s teachings..” - and there were no witnesses - ever - to the revelations of Mohammed, the koran was written on whatever was handy, parts of it lost, this was the advanced culture chosen by God to convey His final word?
Now the Western world has seen the followers of Islam up close in our suburbs, schools, shopping centres and swimming pools - that’s enough to ‘educate’ most of us.
