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Norwegian court rules hairdresser Merete Hodne "deliberately discriminated" against Muslim woman


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 15:09 UTC
Malika Bayan
© Scanpix / Carina Johansen / ReutersMalika Bayan is seen in court during a trial of hairdresser Merete Hodne who refused Malika Bayan access to her hair salon because of wearing a hijab, in Sandnes, Norway September 8, 2016.
A discrimination case in a Norwegian court has sparked renewed debate over Islam's place in Western society, after a Muslim convert wins her case against a hairdresser who refused to serve her for wearing a hijab. The reaction to a court ruling in Rogaland county, southwest Norway, to award compensation to a Muslim woman who was refused service at a hairdresser's has brought tensions surrounding the country's Muslim minority back into the spotlight.

On Monday, Jæren District Court in Rogaland county, southwest Norway, found that hairdresser Merete Hodne "deliberately discriminated" against a Muslim woman, Malika Bayan, when the latter walked into her salon wearing a hijab. The court ordered that Hodne pay Bayan 10,000 kroner ($1,200) in compensation as well as court costs of 5,000 kroner ($750).

In October 2015, 24-year-old Bayan and a friend walked into Hodne's salon in the town of Bryne, where she asked how much it would cost to dye her hair. Hodne, 47, refused and advised Bayan, an ethnic Norwegian Muslim convert, to look elsewhere as she "didn't accept"customers like her. When the case originally went to court, Hodne refused to pay the 8,000 kroner fine, claiming that seeing women in hijabs gave her anxiety.

'What can I say? I get freaked out by the hijab," the Fædrelandsvennen newspaper quoted her as saying during her testimony. "I know that not all Muslims are violent, but before one gets to know them, one can never know."

Comment: What hypocrisy! Hodne and her ilk treat Muslims like they are sub-humans and then have the gall to compare their victims to Nazis.

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Crusader

Austrian cardinal: Muslims want 'Islamic conquest of Europe'


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 19:41 UTC
Austrian muslims
© Heinz-Peter Bader / Reuters
Many Muslims would be glad to see Europe conquered by Islam, an Austrian cardinal and leading future candidate for the papacy said. He also warned that the Christian heritage of Europe risked disappearing, with the statements raising much controversy online.

"Will there now be a third Islamic attempt to conquer Europe? Many Muslims think that and want that, and they say 'Europe is at the end,'" Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said, as cited by the Archdiocese of Vienna.

He was speaking during the church festival "Holy Name of Mary." The holiday commemorated the victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

He asked God to have mercy on Europe as people of Europe "are in danger of forfeiting our Christian heritage."
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Pistol

Family gets $780K after cop tries to kill their dog & shoots their 4yo daughter instead

Andrew Emett
Free Thought Project
Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:04 UTC
4 yr old girl shot by police
Responding to the house of a woman requesting medical treatment, a Columbus police officer arrived at the front door and immediately shot her 4-year-old daughter when attempting to kill their dog. Fearing that a jury would award the family substantially more money, the Columbus City Council unanimously approved a $780,000 settlement with the innocent girl's family on Monday.

After interviewing the victim of a hit-and-run incident on June 19, 2015, Officer Jonathan Thomas was returning to his patrol car when he heard a woman from another house calling for help. Andrea Ellis had cut her arm on a piece of broken glass, and her sister, Brandie Kelly, called 911 to request an ambulance. While Kelly was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, she noticed Officer Thomas outside and called out to him for medical assistance.
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Camcorder

Bully cop Sgt. Stephen Matakovich - used unnecessary force 56 times & injured 17 people

Andrew Emett
The Free Thought Project
Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:13 UTC
Sgt. Stephen Matakovich
© thingsthatsuck.infoSgt. Stephen Matakovich
Caught on video savagely beating a teenage football fan and falsifying arrest reports, a fired police sergeant has recently been accused by the district attorney of using more force than necessary at least 56 times. Establishing a pattern of violence and falsifying reports, Allegheny County prosecutors introduced the new evidence on Monday in preparation for the ex-cop's upcoming state trial.

On November 28, 2015, a surveillance video captured off-duty police Sgt. Stephen Matakovich ordering 19-year-old Gabriel Despres to leave Heinz Field. In his arrest report, Matakovich falsely claimed that Despres adopted an "aggressive posture" and appeared ready to attack him.

But according to the video, Despres calmly stood with his arms down at his sides when Matakovich suddenly shoved the teen to the ground and began punching him in the head. Although Despres did not provoke the attack and did not appear to fight back, the off-duty cop repeatedly struck him while several other security guards watched.
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Attention

Violent clashes over austerity program as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visits Naples


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 04:32 UTC
clashes naples
© RT
Fierce clashes broke out in the Italian city of Naples as hundreds rallied against the arrival of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Denouncing his austerity policies, protesters lit flares and broke through police cordons.

Hundreds of Italians took to the streets in Naples this week to vent their anger at policies being pushed through by Renzi's government. They included changes to labor laws, education reforms, and the implementation of austerity policies. The protests were organized by several left-wing activists and teachers who said that the policies threaten to wreck the country's already weak economy.

Angry protesters tried Monday to make their way into the main opera house in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo, where Renzi was due to arrive but they were blocked by police on their way. The group turned violent hurling dustbins and throwing street benches.

In April, anti-Renzi demonstrations in Pisa resulted in several arrests and injuries.
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Sheriff

Sperm-sniffing police dog Billie recruited to track down rapists


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 15:01 UTC
Billie the dog
© Derbyshire police
Police in Derbyshire have employed a specially-trained dog, Billie the cocker spaniel, to track down sex offenders by sniffing out their semen.

Unlike many police dogs that specialize in identifying drugs, bombs or blood, Billie is trained to find DNA evidence used in sex cases by tracking down traces of human sperm.

His nose is so sharp he can detect as little as a milliliter of semen, which is about a third of the average ejaculation, more than a year after it was deposited indoors.

Billie can even smell eight-week-old sperm outside if it is "protected from the worst of the weather."
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Hearts

While Western countries freak out at prospect of integrating tiny Muslim minorities, Islam thrives in Putin's Russia

Rebecca Miller
National Interest
Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:19 UTC
cathedral mosque moscow
Thousands of Muslims pray at the recently renovated and expanded Cathedral Mosque in Moscow. Can you imagine this scene ever taking place in Washington, DC?
Vladimir Putin has made religion a central part of his public image, using Orthodoxy as a way to bolster for his political agendas. But Orthodoxy is not the only religion that experienced a revival in the post - Cold War period; among other religions, Islam, once shunned by the Soviet state, has increasingly been embraced by the Russian state.

This was a major theme of an April 7 presentation at George Washington University's Elliott School by Bulat Akhmetkarimov, a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). At the event, titled "Islam and the Dynamics of Ethno-Confessional Regimes in Russia, 1990-2012," Akhmetkarimov discussed the Russian state's attitudes toward religion and how attitudes toward Islam have evolved in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

As the largest religious minority in Russia, Muslims make up roughly 11 percent of Russia's total population. Based on statistics provided by Pew Research Center, this percentage is predicted to increase to roughly 13 percent by 2030 and nearly 17 percent percent by 2050, with about twenty million Muslims in Russia.

Comment: What a tricky piece of data for Westerners to make sense of.

Liberals hate Putin, but want to welcome Muslim refugees.

Conservatives want to like Putin, but are terrified of Muslims.

Hmmm... How do SOTT readers reconcile the two viewpoints?

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Caesar

Looking beyond the propaganda: Do minorities have a place in Putin's Russia?

Carlo Massimo
Wilson Quarterly
Thu, 09 Jul 2015 11:54 UTC

Comment: One funny - and very notable - thing about russophobia in the West is that even when analysts criticize Russia they can't help but admire it. The following 'smart' article for 'smart Westerners' is a case in point...


kazan
Kazan City, capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, lies 800km east of Moscow. Over 1,000 years old, the city has been completely redeveloped (beginning in 2000, funnily enough)
In a rising Russia, patriotism is the order of the day. For some Tatars, Russia's biggest minority, that's good news. Others are refusing to buy in.

Russia, more than most other countries, knows the difference between nations— ethnic, cultural, geographic bodies — and sovereign countries. The Russian Federation alone contains dozens of discrete nations: ethnic Russians, of course, but also Yakuts in the east, Chechens and Ossetians in the Caucasus, ethnic Ukrainians, Russian Jews, and a widely dispersed population of Muslim Tatars. Each nation speaks its own language, practices its own religion, and follows its unique traditions. They are citizens of, and outsiders in, a Federation dominated by ethnic Russians.

This diversity poses a major obstacle to Russian President Vladimir Putin's political agenda. Since the early 2000s, Putin's government has pushed for a strong, conservative patriotism across the Federation. Russia, as Putin sees it, is on the rise, well on its way to resuming its old status as superpower. That new power needs shoring-up at home. Slavophile clubs, nationalist militias in Russia's European enclaves, and an invigorated Orthodox Church are key buttresses in Moscow's snarling ascent.


Comment: "Snarling ascent", very clever! But is it applicable? Where are Russia's killing fields? Where are its torture chambers? Where is its global, intrusive mass surveillance system? Where are the memos and recorded phone conversations in which it dictates policy to others?


Comment: A healthy, organic, and delicious pork chop at that!

What choice meats might we find if we peeked under the social fabric of US or European society?

If Russian integration of minorities has been successful (and that during a time when religious and ethnic fracture lines are being ruthlessly ruptured all around the globe), while in Western societies Muslims (and others) are treated like dirt, what does that tell us about the nature of Western regimes vis a vis Putin's regime?

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Handcuffs

Police arrest 22 after interfering at Dakota pipeline construction site (VIDEO)


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 01:42 UTC
South Dakota pipeline protest
Police said they arrested 22 people at the construction site of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, claiming people were interfering with equipment. The arrests were made 70 miles northwest of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's main protest site.

The Morton County Sheriff's Office said about 50 law enforcement police responded to events the site near Glen Ullin Tuesday after construction workers said they had been "swarmed" by protesters and that two people had"attached" themselves to equipment.

The protesters face charges of criminal trespassing, and the two attached to equipment faces charges of hindering law enforcement and disorderly conduct, according to the Sheriff's spokeswoman, Donnell Preskey, according to AP.

The site near Glen Ullin is not part of the temporary work stoppage ordered by the federal judge or the section the federal government asked Energy Transfer Partners to voluntarily stop work on last Friday.

Comment: See also:
  • Freedom of the press? Democracy Now's Amy Goodman issued an arrest warrant for coverage of Dakota pipeline
protest
  • Dakota Pipeline: Armed troops deployed with militarized checkpoints ahead of court ruling


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Bell

British media lambasts Jeremy Corbyn for 'insensitive' 9/11 tweet - British public retweets it thousands of times

Harley Tamplin
Metro, UK
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 11:22 UTC
Corbyn stop the war
Ever seen Cameron or Blair give a speech at a 'stop the war' rally?
Jeremy Corbyn took to Twitter to pay tribute to the victims of 9/11 on the 15th anniversary of the terror attack.

At first glance, his tweet about the attack on New York City seems innocuous.

But the words chosen by the Labour leader in the second half of his message have seen him come in for plenty of criticism.


Comment: Not really; the overwhelming majority of attention it garnered was positive.


After saying his thoughts were with those whose lives were 'shattered' on the fateful day, he wrote: 'And in the wars and terror unleashed across the globe in its aftermath.'

His reference to the 'wars' and 'terror' that followed provoked fury on social media as people suggested he should have kept the tributes to 9/11.

Mr Corbyn, who played a leading role in the Stop the War Coalition opposed to military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, received a barrage of tweets criticising his choice of words.


Comment: A barrage indeed, but note that the level of criticism is vastly outnumbered by positive support.

One wonders what the British media made of the French president's statement on the 15th anniversary of 9/11:

Hollande: 'US response to 9/11 only expanded global terrorism and brought chaos to France'

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