Liam, a resident of Luton writes in the comments with some insights on Thursday’s story about religious freedom and school uniforms:

I come from Luton, the town in question, in Bedfordshire. I went to a neighbouring school. There are some points of fact that need to be stated first.

Luton is a town of just under 200,000 people, about 45,000 of whom are Muslim, mostly from Bangladesh, Kashmir and Pakistan. There are several other immigrant groups in the town, Irish, West Indian, African, Eastern European etc, (I count myself amongst them). It is therefore a very diverse community.

The school in question, Denbigh High School, has a school roll that is 80% Muslim. The headmaster of that school at the time this issue came up in 2002, is himself a Muslim. Most of the Board of Governers of the school, and the Parent/Teachers Organisation are Muslim, as are a large amount of the teachers.

95% of the children come from minority ethnic backgrounds and fully 75% have a first language that is not English. 85% percent of pupils come from poor families.

Given the above, the superb results achieved by the school, as highlighted by their last full inspection by H.M. Inspector of Schools in 2004, are a testament to the hard work and dedication of the staff and of both the head teachers during this period.

There is a great determination among parents, most of whom are Muslim, and nearly all of whom are immigrants, that their children should take full advantage of the excellent (and free) education and resources that the school offers.

The dress code of the school was drawn up by these bodies in consultation with local Imams, and this was done with the greatest of care, not least because many of those responsible for the code are Muslims.

The high level of Muslim pupils is not by design, but merely a demographic fact dictated by the catchment area of the school. There are many other high schools with large numbers of Muslims in attendance.

None of the other pupils, who not only are Muslims, but from the same branch of Islam, and indeed from exactly the same ethnic and cultural background, have an issue with the uniform code.

The idea that this is some type of religious discrimination is not only wrong, it is a travesty of the truth. This is in no way akin to the French law that forbids religious dress in school. The uniform code is a matter for the school, not the education authority, and certainly not the Government. The French law is deprecated by all right thinking people as misguided and unjust.

I would say, given that I come from an immigrant background myself, that the English people bend over backwards to accomodate minority groups in such matters. All that most people want is a bit of give-and-take.

Here is a quotation from The Times (article linked below)

[Shabina] Begum, whose parents are both dead, had worn the shalwar kameez from when she entered the school at the age of 12 until September 2002, when she and her brother, Shuweb Rahman, told the assistant head teacher that would now wear only a jilbab.

The judge said when she arrived dressed in a jilbab, she was told to go home and change into school uniform. She was accompanied by her brother and another young man, whom the assistant head teacher felt were unreasonable and threatening, he said.

Here is a couple of other snippets from the article, which are illuminating:

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the school was right to seek to protect other Muslim pupils from fundamentalists.

The fact that other schools allow Muslim dress is totally irrelevant. The issue is whether an individual school has the right to lay down a uniform policy that it considers to be reasonable for its community.

followed by:

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Assocation, said: “We are very pleased. The school had made a very clear effort to design a uniform within a multicultural policy, which is not to be overturned by a single pupil.

“One of the reasons we have school uniform is to protect pupils from pressure from whatever quarter. I think other schools will take encouragement from the judgment in being supportive of a uniform policy even where you have deeply held religious convictions.”

and finally (and this is the clincher)

Mr Justice Bennett said that by sticking to its rules on uniform the school was protecting pupils from unwelcome outside influences and contributing to ’social cohesion and harmony’.

Many girls at the school did not wish to wear a jilbab and would feel ‘pressure on them either from inside or outside the school’ if it were adopted.

Mr Justice Bennett suggested that Miss Begum may have been influenced by her older brother, Shuweb Rahman, who became her litigant-friend in court. ‘One wonders why it should have been her brother who articulated what the claimant was perfectly capable of saying herself,’ he said.

During the trial Yasmin Bevan, the head teacher of the comprehensive, said that one of the reasons the school maintained its ban on the jilbab was to help children to resist the efforts of extremist Muslim groups to recruit them.

Note that the present teacher (who is an award-winning professional), is herself a Muslim.

That article is here.

This is less about religious and civil liberties, and more about a precosious young lady who has been stamping her foot for perhaps too long, encouraged by a brother with a big mouth. Unfortunately her parents have both passed on, which may go some way to explaining this.

This ridiculous affair has been misreported in many countries as a case of an ignorant �white� school trying to do down an oppressed minority, being fought by a plucky young girl. I resent that, everyone I know resents it, and the Muslim population in particular are sick of it.

If anyone is interested the last full inspection of the school is summarised here.

For a flavour of the type of horrible oppression that is inflicted on children from minority backgrounds in our publicly funded (ie totally free) schooling system, which 95% of British children attend, here is the a bit of the latest news from the school, taken from the local newspaper:

�The school also has an impressive new sports hall, which opens up many sporting options to the local area. Already pupils and the local community are benefiting from the wider range of sport and fitness amenities available. Choices include: basketball, indoor cricket, netball, badminton and a dedicated dance studio as well as a refurbished swimming pool, gymnasium, changing and fitness rooms. Later this year, the school will be developing a new artificial football pitch and tennis courts, which will further add to the sporting choices available. Yasmin commented: �Having our very own sports hall means that pupils no longer have to miss out or travel to other venues to participate in exciting sporting activities.��

Thats just sport, just this year. Of course Shabina Begum won�t know about that because she has not attended school in manys a day. Even if she were there, her brother would probably not let her join in.

Shabina is a victim in all of this. A victim of her brother�s intolerance, stupidity and bigotry. A victim of her parent�s untimely deaths. A victim of our unwillingness in the past to set limits in our schools and a victim of misguided lawyers who have given their time to this case in the belief that they are fighting discrimination, when, in fact, they are doing the opposite.

I pray, for all our sakes, that Shabina and her lawyers do not persue this case to the European Court Of Human Rights. If they do, then Shabina will be in her twenties before this is resolved. She has already suffered by isolating herself from her friends at school. She will, most likely lose the case and she will be responsible for discord in our community, and having our country�s name, wrongly, dragged through the mud in Europe.

Worst of all she is becoming a serious embarrassment to the Muslim community in Luton, who really don�t want this farce to carry on. She might want to consider what her future will be like, shunned by many in her own community, pitied by the community at large, with a sub-standard education and therefore under the control of her brother and his friends for the rest of her life.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope I have made it obvious in the above as to what are facts and what are my my opinions. Cheerio!