Canada NewsWire
TORONTO, July 15, 2011
TORONTO, July 15, 2011 /CNW/ - The Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association (CMLA) applauds the decision of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) to permit private prayer for one half-hour each week in a designated space at Valley Park Middle School.
This sign of tolerance and respect allows students of the Muslim faith to avoid having to leave school premises to attend the once weekly congregational prayer, which is an essential part of the Islamic faith, and ensures that they can return to class safely and in a timely fashion.
Said Ms. Yusra Siddiquee, Chair of the CMLA: "I am proud to live in a country where we accommodate and respect the cultural and religious needs of various diverse communities within a public school system, so that all children can learn together."
The TDSB is not involved in the prayer service, and students participate voluntarily and with parental consent. The accommodation was requested by the local community, and has been ongoing for three years without complaint.
The TDSB's decision is consistent with provincial and federal human rights laws, which oblige service providers, including public schools, to accommodate religious needs. It furthers the aims of the Education Act by maximizing instruction time for its students. The TDSB's decision upholds the Charter of Rights of Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of conscience and religion for all Canadians. We believe that the TDSB has struck a helpful balance that is in line with the legal obligations of the TDSB, but also furthers the values of tolerance, respect and fairness that Canadians proudly uphold.
The TDSB adopted a community-based approach in fulfilling its legal and ethical obligations, and worked with parents and members of the Valley Park neighbourhood to achieve a solution that accommodates the needs of over 300 students. Organizations across faith lines have come forward to support the prayer accommodations at Valley Park Middle School.
The CMLA applauds the TDSB's commitment to ensuring that the religious needs of all faith groups are respected and accommodated, without imposition or detriment to others.
Endorsed By:
Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association
Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations
Canadian Council of Imams
Canadian Council of Muslim Theologians
Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association
Hindu Canadian Alliance
Islamic Circle of North America - Canada
Islamic Foundation of Toronto
Islamic Institute of Toronto
Islamic Society of Markham
Islamic Society of North America - Canada
Islamic Society of Toronto
Islamic Society of Peel
Masjid Darul Iman
Muslim Association of Canada
The Mathabah Foundation
Sri Lankan Islamic Foundation of Ontario
This sign of tolerance and respect allows students of the Muslim faith to avoid having to leave school premises to attend the once weekly congregational prayer, which is an essential part of the Islamic faith, and ensures that they can return to class safely and in a timely fashion.
Said Ms. Yusra Siddiquee, Chair of the CMLA: "I am proud to live in a country where we accommodate and respect the cultural and religious needs of various diverse communities within a public school system, so that all children can learn together."
The TDSB is not involved in the prayer service, and students participate voluntarily and with parental consent. The accommodation was requested by the local community, and has been ongoing for three years without complaint.
The TDSB's decision is consistent with provincial and federal human rights laws, which oblige service providers, including public schools, to accommodate religious needs. It furthers the aims of the Education Act by maximizing instruction time for its students. The TDSB's decision upholds the Charter of Rights of Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of conscience and religion for all Canadians. We believe that the TDSB has struck a helpful balance that is in line with the legal obligations of the TDSB, but also furthers the values of tolerance, respect and fairness that Canadians proudly uphold.
The TDSB adopted a community-based approach in fulfilling its legal and ethical obligations, and worked with parents and members of the Valley Park neighbourhood to achieve a solution that accommodates the needs of over 300 students. Organizations across faith lines have come forward to support the prayer accommodations at Valley Park Middle School.
The CMLA applauds the TDSB's commitment to ensuring that the religious needs of all faith groups are respected and accommodated, without imposition or detriment to others.
Endorsed By:
Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association
Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations
Canadian Council of Imams
Canadian Council of Muslim Theologians
Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association
Hindu Canadian Alliance
Islamic Circle of North America - Canada
Islamic Foundation of Toronto
Islamic Institute of Toronto
Islamic Society of Markham
Islamic Society of North America - Canada
Islamic Society of Toronto
Islamic Society of Peel
Masjid Darul Iman
Muslim Association of Canada
The Mathabah Foundation
Sri Lankan Islamic Foundation of Ontario
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/364212#ixzz1SIzw03w2
16 comments:
Just another example of the ongoing Legal-Jihad being fought by Muslims in the west...using aspects of the tolerance in western laws to put into place aspects of the intolerant Islamic code of Sharia.
Anon,
So you as a tolerant Christian want to fight what you perceive as intolerance (read peaceful prayer) with intolerance. We'll that logic sounds a bit as the logical trinity that you bet your soul on. I love Christian logic, it's so logical.
WASHINGTON — Two years after US President Barack Obama called in a groundbreaking speech from Cairo for a "new beginning" in relations with the Muslim world, his popularity among Arabs has nosedived, a poll released Wednesday shows.
An overwhelming majority of more than 4,000 people surveyed in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, told the Arab American Institute that they felt that Obama had not met the expectations he laid out in the June 2009 Cairo speech, the poll found.
Obama called in his Cairo speech for an end to the cycle of "suspicion and discord" between the United States and Muslim world, and outlined a new US blueprint for the Middle East, which included a Palestinian state and efforts to defuse a nuclear showdown with Iran.
But the poll found that Arabs see the Obama administration's handling of key Middle East policy issues as having made no contribution to improving relations between them and the United States.
In fact, the two issues on which the US administration has invested "considerable energy -- the Palestinian issue and engagement with the Muslim world -- receive the lowest approval ratings," the survey found.
Less than nine percent of the people polled said the Obama administration has handled the two key issues well.
The Arab world's image of the US as a whole has also soured to become even less favorable than during the last year of the administration of president George W. Bush, under whom the United States led an international coalition that invaded Iraq, the survey found.
The killing by US Navy SEALs of Osama bin Laden did little to improve Arabs' views of the United States. Majorities in all six countries said they viewed the United States less favorably following the killing of the Al-Qaeda head in Pakistan. (Read more.)
Hizb ut-Tahrir Conference in Chicago
RABWAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - At the office of what claims to be one of Pakistan's oldest newspapers, workers scan copy for words it is not allowed to use -- words like Muslim and Islam. "The government is constantly monitoring this publication to make sure none of these words are published," explains our guide during a visit to the offices of al Fazl, the newspaper of the Ahmadiyya sect in Pakistan. This is Rabwah, the town the Ahmadis built when they fled the killings of Muslims in India at Partition in 1947, and believing themselves guided by God, chose a barren stretch of land where they hoped to make the Punjab desert bloom. Affluent and well-educated, they started out camping in tents and mud huts near the river and the railway line. Now they have a town of some 60,000 people, a jumble of one- and two-storey buildings, along with an Olympic size swimming pool, a fire service and a world class heart institute. Yet declared by the state in the 1970s to be non-Muslims, they face increasing threats of violence across Pakistan as the country strained by a weakening economy, an Islamist insurgency and internecine political feuds, fractures down sectarian and ethnic lines. "The situation is getting worse and worse," says Mirza Khurshid Ahmed, amir of the Ahmadi community in Pakistan. "The level of religious intolerance has increased considerably during the last 10 years."
I'm a secularist Lupus. The government of Canada has no business giving preferential treatment to ANYONE'S religion in our public schools. You don't stop school, or work, or any other essential societal functions just because people want to initiate religious rights to their deity. If your religion can't fit into the modern world then send it back to the 7th century where it came from.
@Snowman and his fellow SNOWITES
I'm shocked, a Muslim Lawyer assosation would actually defend the islamization of Canadian public shcool systems.
Now if only Christians were allowed to hold worship services in the public school systems of say KSA, or Pakistan, or Iran, or well take a dart and throw it at a map with Muslim countries and choose.
But thats Islam for you, "Tolerate Islamic Intolerance".
i cant believe the stupidity of christians. firstly, no school gets stopped just so we can pray, we do it AFTER school ends.
funny, christians who say they support freedom of religion will do absolutelt ANYTHING to restrict Muslims. its because they know islam is the truth. they just want to keep on running. how sad.
For muslims, a small place to perform prayer in the place near to where they do daily duty is needed. We're obliged to do 5-10" break 5 times a day n 30" congregational service in Friday to remember the Creator of the Universe.
For a believing n practising muslims, its their fundamental duty thus a basic human right, simply that.
Why one can tolerate special access/facility for disabled , elderly or woman in public but discriminate against muslims who want to do a religious duty?
Should Christians or secularists need some place and time for doing thing positive to them, I don't think anyone would /should have any objection to that.
Other commenter pointed out that there's intolerance in Islamic countries, we need to understand what really happen there closely understand the root of the problem the politics behind it etc, however the. acts that christians (any denomination) minorities are still living and thriving in Arab countries some estimates 20m of them is a proof that there's no large scale bible inspired extermination and annihilation of minorities the history shown us (the burning of non christians in medieval Europe, the inquisition, the holocaust etc and what we just saw recently the Sebrenica holocaust).
I don't know in country like kSA, Iran, Pakistan but here in Indonesia the Christians enjoy their freedom .
They can build and use any public service to worship, air TV programs, represented in Goverments and MPs far exceeding their proportion.
Church planting and evangelical stuff are big business here often its so aggressive and insensitive to muslims neighborhood and causing backlash in recent years (sadly the Christians always make it a showcase of their "repression" by muslims and something to do with Islam, for doing this they give Islam bad publicity and have more reason to beg more money from overseas evangelical group in the US , Europe. Australia)
For muslims, a small place to perform prayer in the place near to where they do daily duty is needed. We're obliged to do 5-10" break 5 times a day n 30" congregational service in Friday to remember the Creator of the Universe.
For a believing n practising muslims, its their fundamental duty thus a basic human right, simply that.
Why one can tolerate special access/facility for disabled , elderly or woman in public but discriminate against muslims who want to do a religious duty?
Should Christians or secularists need some place and time for doing thing positive to them, I don't think anyone would /should have any objection to that.
Other commenter pointed out that there's intolerance in Islamic countries, we need to understand what really happen there closely understand the root of the problem the politics behind it etc, however the. acts that christians (any denomination) minorities are still living and thriving in Arab countries some estimates 20m of them is a proof that there's no large scale bible inspired extermination and annihilation of minorities the history shown us (the burning of non christians in medieval Europe, the inquisition, the holocaust etc and what we just saw recently the Sebrenica holocaust).
I don't know in country like kSA, Iran, Pakistan but here in Indonesia the Christians enjoy their freedom .
They can build and use any public service to worship, air TV programs, represented in Goverments and MPs far exceeding their proportion.
Church planting and evangelical stuff are big business here often its so aggressive and insensitive to muslims neighborhood and causing backlash in recent years (sadly the Christians always make it a showcase of their "repression" by muslims and something to do with Islam, for doing this they give Islam bad publicity and have more reason to beg more money from overseas evangelical group in the US , Europe. Australia)
Anon,
If your religion can't fit into the modern world then send it back to the 7th century where it came from.
Lupus replied:
A religion is an inanimate object. It's its practitioners you wan't to send somewhere. It's ok for you to impose your way of living on native americans by force but not ok for muslims to affect their own situation peacefully. Moreover, don't minorities have a right according to democratic values to voice their needs?
I suggest you send yourself back to europe. Muslims are colonnizing Canada in a peacful manner. You guys on the other hand colonized American through genocide.
Frosty
Try to follow this. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the Ontario Public Schools could not be a palce of prayer for ant relegious group. Now that would not only a public recitations of the Lord's prayer because it is offensive to Jews and Muslims it should also include a public recitation of Surah Al Fatihah is offnive to Jews and Christians.
This is Canada Frosty not Pakistan. If you want Fridays prayers in the schools then open a private school like Christians are forced to if they want relegous instruction for their Children.
Lupus, I'm First Nations Canadian. I didn't come from Europe and neither did my ancestors. It is interesting to see you admit that you Muslims are "colonising" Canada. No shock to me. Islam is imperialistic and always has been. Islam brutalised and attempted to violently Arabise too many indigenous people to count. According to your own standard, you have just condemned Islam and told all the Arabs to go back to the Arabian Peninsula. Good job genius.
"A religion is an inanimate object. It's its practitioners you wan't to send somewhere."
No, it is the belief system that is not suited to the modern world, and by it's very design tailored to 7th century Arabia. In the west we don't go around stopping life so you can talk to your imaginary friend in the sky. Every other religion manages to function in the modern, even for those that are devout. You can too, and if you don't want to, then move to a Shariastan where you can bask in "the glory of Islam". But you're not turning my ancestral homeland into one of those Shariastans! We will not be the next Copts, or Turkmenics, or Assyrians, or Persians, or Levantines. My culture is not "jahiliyya". We will not submit to your totalitarian book called Al-Quran that claims for itself the sole right of governance on this planet.
Riddle me this, Lupus: If Islam is the perfect way of life like your deity claims, why is everywhere that it's in the majority a disgustingly backwards and violent economic hell-hole?
@ anonymous
um well 4 of the g20 members are muslim states (if you count india where 25% are muslim, then make it 5). malaysia, qatar, UAE, bahrain, kazakhstan and oman are also economic giants.
Anon said:
Lupus, I'm First Nations Canadian. I didn't come from Europe and neither did my ancestors. It is interesting to see you admit that you Muslims are "colonising" Canada. No shock to me. Islam is imperialistic and always has been. Islam brutalised and attempted to violently Arabise too many indigenous people to count. According to your own standard, you have just condemned Islam and told all the Arabs to go back to the Arabian Peninsula. Good job genius.
Lupus said:
I said peaceful colonisation, perhaps a bad choice of words. Your arguments just shows what a pitiful state Indians are in. You've been raped, murdered, dispossesed and obviously indoctrinated by your colonizers. So who do you attack? A minority who've come to your country legally. Moreover, muslims have never colonized a territory in the same brutal manner as the Europeans. It's a historical fact. Take Egypt for example which is one of the first countries taken by the muslim Arabs. It didn't have a muslim majority until hundred of years after it was taken. Moreover, muslims were often seen as liberators and improved the conditions of the inhabitants. Moreover, the Arabs didn't have the manpower to colonize a territory in the same way as the Europeans who shipped millions of people to the new world. Take Morocco for example which was conquered in the 7th century. Dna studies have reaveled that almost a 100% percent of the people are of non-Arab descent. They adopted the religion but they were not colonized. Contrast that with the US. How many Indians are still left and how many are of European descent.
Who's the genius?
Frosty
Christians are not allowed to pray in the publis schools in Ontario. We cannot have a time set apart during class hours. So if the law is to be applied equally them Muslims are not allowed to have a cafeteria changed into a mosque.
This is Sharia through the back door. Canada is not a dhimmi nation. It is a sovereign state founded on Judeo-Christian principals not Islamic Shariah and Islamic juris prudence.
When Christians can have church services in Pakistan durring class time maybe I will change my mind but you know as well as I do that will never happen.
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