« Afghanistan: Islamism And The Creation Of A "Failed State" |
| UK: Muslim Death Threats For Anglican Bishop »
February 1, 2008
UK: Hijab-Wearing Muslim Doubles Claim Against Hair Salon Owner
19-year old Bushra Noah, from Acton, west London, has doubled her claims against the owner of a hair salon in north London. The news was first reported in the Times (briefly) and in the Daily Mail on November 9th, 2007.
At that time, Noah was complaining that when she applied for a hairdressing job at Wedge salon in Kings Cross, and said that she would not remove her headscarf, she was treated unfairly. Noah had already been refused employment at 25 other hairdressing venues, but decided to sue Canadian-born Sarah Desrosiers.
According to the National Secular Society, the Evening Standard and the Islington Gazette, Noah, was due to have her claim heard on January 16 at the Central London Employment Tribunal, doubled her claim. Originally, she had been suing Ms Desrosiers for £15,000 ($29,495). At the last minute, Noah told the tribunal that she had increased the amount she wanted to £30,000 ($58,989). As a result, the tribunal was postponed until March.
The reasons that Noah gave for increasing her claim is that she asserts that she has been receiving hate mail since the case was publicized. Desrosiers said of this assertion: "That's beyond my control. I am not responsible for other people sending hate mail. I needed to highlight the case because I needed to find financial help to pay my legal bills. My lawyers have warned me that I might have to go personally bankrupt if I lose the case and now there is this attempt to get more money out of me. I think it is just totally wrong."
When the case first appeared in the British news, Noah had no problems with arguing her case, and posing for a photograph in the Daily Mail. She had said then: "The advertised job of junior assistant stylist was perfect for me. I did NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) in hairdressing at college and have 18 months experience at a salon in Ealing Broadway."
"On the phone, Sarah sounded very keen on me because of my experience and qualifications. I sent her my CV and she invited me in a few days later for a trial day. But when I got there, she looked at me in shock. She started making excuses about wanting someone who lived locally but I knew it was my headscarf. She said, 'You really should have told me that you wear a headscarf'. She asked if I wore it all the time and I said, 'Yes'. She asked if I would take it off for work and I said, 'No'. Wearing a headscarf is very important in my religion and is non-negotiable. It is about showing your modest side."
As is obvious from the picture that Noah posed for, she has little appreciation of style. To wear a black and white houndstooth check with a blue, brown and white organic design is not stylish, nor fashionable. The heavily accentuated eyebrows also look unfashionable.
Sarah Desroisiers claims that her salon in Caledonian Road is promoting a "funky punky look". Though Noah claims she knows how to do a "funky punky" style, the fact that she is too religiously disdainful of hair display is guaranteed to make customers feel uncomfortable.
As Janice Turner wrote in the Times of November 10, 2007: "Would it feel comfortable, I wonder, to have your hair cut by someone who believes that merely sipping coffee in the salon, with your head publicly revealed, is immodest, even obscene? Why anyway would a devout Muslim want to cut women's hair? There are endless scholarly writings interpreting the Koran's position on this: some suggest that women's hair should not be cut at all, or only if it reaches beyond the base of the spine, others that styles favoured by non-believers are banned - but all agree women's hair should never be so short she might be mistaken for a man. So how could Ms Noah square her avowed faith with a client opting for a Britney?"
"But then she is not fighting to wear the headscarf out of religious faith. Like the West Yorkshire teaching assistant who demanded to obscure her face while teaching infant children, the veil is a cultural weapon. It is a statement of separation from - and declared opposition to - the secular society in which she was raised, which she expects wholly to accommodate her impossible wishes, while she herself will not budge an inch."
32-year old Ms Desrosiers (right) had only been running the salon for eighteen months before she became subject to the employment discrimination claim. She claimed then that if she lost to Noah, she could face financial ruin. She states that she has had fund-raising events to support her fees, and the publicity has been helpful in that respect.
There appears to be an element of spite in British-born Noah's claim. She said in November 2007: "I just thought that Sarah should not be allowed to get away with it and that if I don't stand up for myself, no one else will."
There is no imaginable way that it can be considered fair that an employment claim can be doubled because of negative fallout from the publicity that Noah had consciously embraced for her "case" (or was it publicity for her political statement of faith?).
The comments in the Daily Mail from November and the Evening Standard are almost universally hostile towards Noah. But this is not the fault of Ms Desrosiers. Ms Noah brought the case, and should be prepared to cope with the negative consequences of committing what has become seen by many as a hostile, anti-Western and vindictive act.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 1, 2008 6:13 PM
Comments
I remember when I was 20, as a maintenance technician of small telephone switches, where I had to visit many customers who where small and medium-size companies, I had many arguments with my boss about my hippy-style clothing, and finally got fired.
Though I haven't sued the company I worked in, I was very stuborn and "young rebell" at that time (that was the time in the years after the hippy movement, and we were, as we named it in France at that time, "baba-cools").
Now with time elapsed and some right mind in my brain, I have to acknoledge that my boss and my company, who didn't even required me to wear a tie, but only to wear decent clothes, were totally right, and were so kind as not to fire me for a "gross professionnal fault" reason, which they could easily have done, and I could benefit of unemployement monthly payments, thanks to their benevolence !
I don't know... I must also acknoledge that when you are young you are often stuborn and close-minded to any raisonnable points, but youths now know that unemployment is rampant in our societies, not like in my youth when you could find a job easily, and didn't think about so much as now, and this seems to me a clear political claim from this Noah, on the boundary of harassement towards Mrs Desrosiers. I wonder whether harassement could be pleaded as a defense for Mrs Desrosiers at the trial in the UK ?
Posted by: Spipou ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.westernresistance.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 1, 2008 7:08 PM
And she is surprised to have been dismissed 25 times ? Doesn't she have a mirror ?
Posted by: Spipou at February 1, 2008 7:19 PM
What bad luck to receive that CV.
And another backfiring stunt by a victimuslim.
Posted by: Londinium at February 4, 2008 11:41 AM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)