Niqabs, long unheard of in island nation, have become more popular in recent years, but unclear how measure would have thwarted bombings
KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (AP) — As Sri Lanka’s long civil war ended in this once-contested region along its eastern coast, Muslim women who were eager to show their piousness began wearing the black niqab veil to hide their faces.
Now in the wake of Easter suicide attacks launched by Islamic State group-linked militants that killed over 250 people, Sri Lanka’s president has used his emergency powers to ban the practice, unheard of until recently, in the island nation off the southern coast of India.
The ban, which took effect Monday, has been touted as a security measure. However, it criminalizes a practice more associated with an ultraconservative form of Islam previously unknown on the island, one that more closely adheres to the strict beliefs more common in Saudi Arabia.
It also focuses public attention on women who practice their religious beliefs peacefully, while the government and foreign diplomats say IS-linked militants armed with explosives still roam the island.
It is no longer enough to say ‘that’s awful’ and move on, we need a serious reckoning, writes Brendan O’Neill
HERE’S the most horrific thing from the barbaric assault on Christians and holidaymakers in Sri Lanka.
In the Zion Evangelical Church in the eastern city of Batticaloa, children were gathered for Sunday school.
Given it was Easter Sunday their teacher asked them, “How many of you are willing to die for Christ?”
According to a teacher who survived what was about to happen, all the children put their hands up. They then spilled out into the church grounds to play. Photos show them looking happy.
Minutes later, an Islamist terrorist, who had failed to get into the church itself, walked among the group of children and blew himself up. Twelve children were killed. Many of their teachers were killed, too. Their crime was to be Christian.
Details like this demand an urgent and serious assessment of the phenomenon of Islamist terrorism.
Because this terrorism, even by the historical standards of terrorism, is peculiarly hateful, misanthropic and barbaric.
What drives someone to detonate a suicide belt while standing among children?
It brings to mind the Baghdad suicide bomber in July 2005, who drove his car into a group of kids, accepting sweets from a US soldier, and blew himself up.
Twenty-four children were killed.
Or the suicide bomber in Iraq, in September 2006, who blew herself up among families who were queuing for kerosene. Try to imagine what happened next.
And of course it brings to mind the Manchester Arena bombing of May 2017, which faded strikingly fast from the forefront of the British political consciousness, in which an ISIS-inspired extremist blew himself up among parents and children leaving an
LINCOLN, Neb. — Noor Ahmed outwardly lives her Muslim faith, and even growing up in a state as diverse as California she says she encountered hostility on the street, in school and on the golf course.
One of the top junior golfers in Northern California coming out of high school, Ahmed was a starter in her first year at Nebraska and the No. 2 player most of this spring. She is believed to be the only golfer at the college level or higher who competes in a hijab, the headscarf worn in adherence to the Muslim faith.
“That was when she realized how much each and every one of us care for her on the team, that it wasn’t just like, ‘Hey you’re our teammate.’ No, it’s ‘We want you to be safe, we want you to feel at home here.‘” — Kate Smith, Ahmed’s best friend
Arriving in Lincoln two years ago, Ahmed sensed hesitancy from teammates mostly from small Midwestern towns and unaccustomed to seeing a woman in a hijab. She didn’t feel embraced until an unfortunate yet unifying event roiled the campus midway through her freshman year.
A video surfaced of a student claiming to be the “most active white nationalist in the Nebraska area,” disparaging minorities and advocating violence. The student, it turned out, was in the same biology lecture class as Ahmed.
Teammates offered to walk with her across campus, and one who would become her best friend, Kate Smith, invited Ahmed to stay with her. She didn’t accept but was heartened by the gesture.
“That,” Smith said, “was when she realized how much each and every one of us care for her on the team, that it wasn’t just like, ‘Hey you’re our teammate.’ No, it’s ‘We want you to be safe, we want you to feel at home here.’”
Having grown up in the post-9/11 era, Ahmed, like many Muslims in the United States, has been a target for bullying and verbal abuse. She began wearing the hijab in middle school.
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On the course, in an airport or even walking across campus she can feel the long stares and notices the glances. She said she has never been physically threatened — “that I know of” — and that most of the face-to-face insults came before she arrived at Nebraska.