Muslim Girl Ejected from Canadian Soccer Tournament
Charles Johnson
Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 8:36 pm PST • Views: 479
Someone pushed an 11-year old Muslim girl into trying to play in a soccer tournament wearing the symbol of radical Islam’s suppression of women—the hijab.
She was ejected, according to the rules.
And now the second-guessing starts.
The ejection of an 11-year-old Canadian Muslim girl from a soccer game has reignited Quebec’s debate over the “reasonable accommodation” of minorities, even prompting comments from Premier Jean Charest.
Quebec’s soccer federation said Asmahan Mansour of Ottawa was given the choice of taking off her hijab or not to play in a Sunday tournament in nearby Laval.
The federation says wearing the hijab - an Islamic veil or head scarf - violates a no-headgear rule set down by the sport’s governing body for safety reasons.
But others have slammed the referee’s decision, saying it is just another example of how Quebec is trying to get immigrants to toe a cultural line. The Quebec Soccer Federation noted the referee was also a Muslim.
Quebec Premier Jean Charest, himself a one-time soccer player, noted that he has seen rough-and-tumble games stopped so players could tuck in their shirts on orders from the referee.
“My understanding is that the referee applied the rules of the soccer federation and that’s why that decision was made,” Charest said on Monday.
Frank says: