Reacting to the sentencing of more than twenty gang members convicted for the kidnapping, torture and murder of her 23 year-old son, Ilan, Ruth Halimi declared herself to be “frightened” at the relatively lenient terms received by all the defendants other than the ringleader. The trial of Ilan’s murderers was not public, she noted, because two of the defendants were minors when the crime was committed. As a result, French society was denied a vital insight into the violent, delinquent antisemitism which festers in its banlieues. Had the horrific details of Ilan’s ordeal been recounted in the public eye, these prison terms, one as light as six months suspended, would have been much tougher.
Continue reading ‘Seeking Justice for Ilan Halimi’
This is a guest post by Modernity.
I recently commented on this blog that I am against the State enforcing dress codes and Ben kindly asked me to elaborate.
I should say, from the outset, that I am a secularist, as well as being an atheist and a lover of French history (if I could ever finish that volume by Colin Jones!)
Continue reading ‘The State and the Burqa’
French President Nicolas Sarkozy: “We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity. That is not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity. The burqa is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.”
And there’s this too:
Continue reading ‘Sarkozy: “The Burqa is a Sign of Subservience”’
