Happy Diversity Icon Marseille Experiences Muslim Rioting over Burqa
07/29/2012
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In March, the National Geographic magazine published an article and photo spread about the French port of Marseille, full of upbeat chatter about multiple cultures living happily together in the city. The propaganda of diversity started with the title (and continued throughout): Marseille’s Melting Pot; As more European countries become nations of immigrants, is the multicultural city of Marseille a vision of the future? The presentation wasn’t convincing, although the pictures were pretty.

Below, the city’s historic arch is a popular spot for locals and visitors. Marseille’s diversity is 30-40 percent Muslim.

However, recent news indicates that Marseille is not a multicultural paradise at all, with one report characterizing it as “restive.” France voted to ban the burqa from public areas a couple years ago, a move displeasing to Allah’s rabid followers. When police recently asked for an ID from a woman illegally disguised in a identity-hiding head sack, a local riot ensued over her refusal to comply.

It gets worse. Not only were the violent Muslims quickly released to “appease tensions,” but the officers involved face an administrative inquiry for enforcing the law. This behavior is no way to maintain the rule of law in a western nation.

Muslim immigration is poison. Why does America continue it while Europe’s experience is slow-motion suicide?

French police injured in row over burka, Daily Telegraph, July 26, 2012

Police unions in France are furious after three officers were injured trying to check the identity of a woman flouting the country’s burka ban and who was later released to “appease tensions during Ramadan”.

The officers ordered the 18-year-old called Marie-Louise to produce her identity card around midnight outside a mosque in the southern French city of Marseille, which has a large Muslim population.

She was wearing the niqab that leaves all but the eyes covered in contravention of a 2010 law banning wearing any face-covering veil in public.

The woman refused, saying: “I don’t obey the laws of the French Republic” and allegedly bit one of the officers. Scuffles then broke out with around 50 people present including the woman’s partner. Three officers were lightly injured.

Reinforcements arrived and four people, including the woman and her partner, were arrested and taken to a police station. But they were released shortly afterwards “in a gesture of appeasement during Ramadan”, according to the public prosecutor.

The officers involved, however, now face an administrative inquiry after people present during the incident complained they had used “illegal force”.

Police unions were furious. “Nobody can understand how police officers can be attacked…and in the end the people arrested are released before the officers themselves,” said David-Olivier Reverdy, of the local Alliance union.

“The niqab, according to laws that we enforce but don’t make, is forbidden. We are simply applying the law,” he told France Info.

Yannick of the Unité SGP-Police union, said: “This affair underlines the difficulty we have in applying the law. We get the feeling that many would prefer us to shut our eyes to avoid any incidents.

“In short, you can make police checks but don’t make waves, otherwise you’ll carry the can. It all smacks of hypocrisy and doesn’t make police work in the field any easier.”

Marseille’s deputy mayor Nora Présozi, supported the police, saying: “If we want to avoid an explosive situation, the police must imperatively enforce the law.

“Many women wearing the burka are looking for confrontation with the police. By doing so, they are conveying a poor image of Islam.”

But Muslim website aijib.fr claimed the officers were being over zealous as an interior ministry circular advises police not to intervene in or around “places of worship”.

Around 300 women have been issued fines of up to 150 euros since the face veil ban took effect on April 1, 2011.

Anyone found guilty of forcing a woman to wear a full veil faces a 30,000-euro fine and a year in prison.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy who backed the ban described the full veil as a “sign of enslavement”.

Police estimate that around 2,000 women among France’s five-million strong Muslim population wear the full Islamic veil.

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