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| How I fought Hizb ut-Tahrir: and won - Sydney woman defeats hardline Islamist group on gender segregation - International Womens Day |
| 2016-03-08 |
| [Daily Telegraph OZ] Without a hint of irony the next 10 tweets called me a racist. An Islamophobic bigot, a liar and a whore. It was a swarm. Hizb ut-Tahrir fans were enraged over an opinion piece I wrote for The Daily Telegraph in 2014 that shamed the Islamist group for sending women to the back of the room at their public lecture on the war in Syria. I wrote that it was as terrible as Mississippi blacks being sent to the back of the bus in segregated America. And it is. People should be judged for their character, intelligence, ideas and abilities — not their skin colour or gender. On Friday, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled the event’s organisers broke the law when they gave me no choice but to sit at the back section of the room or leave. The Tribunal has ordered them to make sure that everyone in their organisation understands that gender segregation is not compulsory. They have to put up signs at their venues and in all published promotional material to make this clear. Islamists argue that gender segregation is “separate but equal”, and voluntary — a free religious choice. But secular Muslims exposed this idea as false. Lejla Kuric, a former Bosnian refugee, is among those who have pointed out that women are subject to social coercion if they step out of line in the West — and has written about how in countries where gender segregation is enforced women are severely held back in every aspect of life. |
| Posted by:apples |