Begum loses; BBC still wrong

Sanity and reason, it seems, does still exist here in Britain.

A school which was told it unlawfully excluded a Muslim pupil for wearing a traditional gown has won its appeal at the House of Lords.

The Court of Appeal had said Denbigh High School had denied Shabina Begum the right to manifest her religion in refusing to allow her to wear a jilbab.

But in a unanimous ruling, judges at the House of Lords overturned that.

Unfortunately, given the degree to which Britain has already relinquished its sovereignty, the last word has not necessarily been heard.

[Miss Begum] would consult her lawyers about a potential appeal to the European courts, she said.

There is little reason to hope that such sanity and reason continues to survive in the halls of Brussels.

On another note regarding this story, it is clear that fidelity to language continues to be a problem for the BBC. Despite it’s portrayal to the contrary, Miss Begum was not excluded “for wearing a traditional jilbab”. She was, in fact, excluded for not wearing an approved school uniform…a uniform which in fact did include concessions to Muslim sensitivities.

Virtually every story on the BBC about this affair has portrayed it as an issue in which a school “refused to allow” the jilbab rather than, as was the case, an issue in which a student refused to wear the approved school uniform. In other words, the BBC characterizes the conflict as arising from the actions of the school, rather than from the actions of the girl, a characterization which is belied by the facts of the case. To be fair, the BBC has supplied the details of the case, thus allowing more attentive readers to ultimately draw the correct conlcusions. But still, it's introduction of the issue inevitably seems to place Begum in the role of victim, when in fact reality is quite the opposite.