The Church's secretary for education, Waisake Ravatu, said the students were disciplined for breaking the school dress code rules.

He said the school principal asked students to remove their headscarves last week Wednesday.

Ravatu said all religious schools in Fiji have rules about uniforms

"All the students are required to follow these rules."

He said they could have resolved the issue if parents had consulted the school management.

"While there is scope for allowing students to practise their religious beliefs, there is a reason we have uniforms."

Ravatu said that Christians who attended education institutions owned or managed by other religious organisations had to observe the rules of those schools.

The issue has caused a reaction on social media

Source

• fijitimes.com
• Image: osoblanco64.blogspot.co.nz

Women's Organisation of the Waikato Muslim Association (WOWMA) founder, Aliya Danzeisen, told the Waikato Times she has also been physically pushed in Westfield Chartwell mall, called a "f**ing Muslim" in public, and shouted at from passing cars.

WOWMA was established four years ago to help Muslim women integrate into New Zealand society. Ms Danzeisen said discrimination in the region was high, with Muslim women the target of harassment.

The women had been verbally attacked on the bus, physically pushed in public, shouted at on the street and told to go back home, but for this group of young Muslim women, Hamilton is home.

Source

• Waikato Times
• Image: Sunday StarTimes

Dr Sameer Aljabri, the husband of one of the women, who works at the Saudi Arabia Cultural Mission in Auckland, said he would lodge an official complaint with the Human Rights Commission on behalf of his wife. The incident had affected his opinion of New Zealand, where he had lived for about seven months. "It feels like this country is at the end of the world and knows nothing about the rest of the world," he said.

A Human Rights Commission spokesman said the incidents appeared to amount to discrimination on religious grounds.

• Pope Benedict, in the course of an interview with German journalist Peter Seewald said "As far as the burqa is concerned, I do not see a reason for a general ban. Some women do not wear the burqa entirely voluntarily and it is correct to talk of a violation against that woman. Of course one can not agree with that. But if they want to wear it voluntarily, I don't know why one must ban them."
• Last year the French Catholic Church said that Islamic countries would not respect their Christian minorities if Nicolas Sarkozy's government banned full-face Muslim veils. Bishop Michel Santier, the senior French official for inter-faith relations, said very few women in France wore full veils and that Muslim leaders agreed it was not obligatory.
• New Zealand Christian Network National Director Glyn Carpenter defended the freedom of Muslim women to wear the full-veil burqa, when he appeared on TV1's Close Up programme on Tuesday, 5 July.
• New Zealand may not be perfect but Saudi Arabia's record on civil, political and religious rights is woeful. Though the latest reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch note some marginal improvements, such as more scope for women to work and study, Saudi Arabia remains one of the world's most repressive, autocratic and intolerant states, says the editorial in the DomionPost

Source

• TV3 News
• Image: TVNZ