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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scoobah who wrote (17648)	11/8/2006 8:20:21 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 32591

Lawyer's refusal to remove veil stops U.K. hearing Last Updated: Wednesday, November 8, 2006 \| 8:29 AM ET The Associated Press cbc.ca A Muslim lawyer was at the centre of another controversy in Britain over the wearing of full-face veils on Wednesday after she twice refused to remove it during a hearing, leading the judge to adjourn the case. Shabnam Mughal, 27, insisted she had the right to use the black veil covering all but her eyes during the immigration tribunal hearing in central England at Stoke-on-Trent on Monday, despite the judge saying that he could not hear her. That led officials on Tuesday to ask the president of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal to issue a decision about how to resolve the courtroom stand-off between Mughal and Judge George Glossop. When Mughal, who was representing a man appealing a Home Office decision denying a family member a visitor's visa, first refused to remove her veil, the case was adjourned until later in the day, the Tribunals Service said. She refused a second time when the hearing was reconvened on Monday afternoon. "You are clearly aware of my position on the grounds of my religious beliefs. I won't," Mughal told the judge, according to Wednesday's Daily Express newspaper. Glossop adjourned the hearing until next week so he could seek a ruling from Sir Henry Hodge, the president of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, on how to proceed. "We haven't come across this before. No precedent has been set," a spokeswoman for the tribunal said. Mughal is a lawyer for the Law Partnership Solicitors in Coventry. Last month, former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote an article on Muslim women's veils that triggered an emotionally charged debate around Britain and as far away as the Middle East. A short time later, a Muslim teaching assistant in northern England was suspended from her job for refusing to remove a black veil that left only her eyes visible. Straw wrote in the newspaper column that he asks women who visit his district office wearing veils that cover almost their entire face to remove the garment when they meet with him. That set off a furious national debate on British multiculturalism and the identity and integration of minority groups, particularly Muslims. British Prime Minister Tony Blair eventually jumped in, saying the full-face veil known as the niqab is "a mark of separation." Trevor Phillips, the head of Britain's race relations watchdog, the Commission for Racial Equality, said the debate was growing ugly and could trigger riots. He said Britons are becoming increasingly polarized along racial and religious lines, and if they don't talk respectfully about their differences, tensions could fuel unrest.