I have heard and witnessed worse situation than this from Sudanese as well as members from other African Nations where unless their demands are met than out comes the "racist" card just to pressure anyone into submission. This is ofcourse another example of political correctness going mad and who would you think introduced this attitude and keeps promoting it ?
Feminists..
Racism card up the sleeve of niqab
Link..
Miranda Devine
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
THE crucial point about Carnita Matthews, the niqab-clad motorist who falsely claimed a police officer tried to remove her face covering, was made by the magistrate who last week sentenced her to six months in jail.
“The system would collapse, of course, if people are making false and wrong complaints to authorities,” said Campbelltown Local Court Magistrate Robert Rabbidge.
In fact, the system has been under stress for years because of official cowardice and the sort of political correctness that tolerates “deliberate, malicious and ruthless” (Rabbidge’s words) claims such as Matthews’.
This time, the good guy won. But the odds are usually stacked against him. Senior Constable Paul Fogarty was just lucky there was a police in-car video camera recording his encounter with Matthews that night five months ago in Sydney’s southwest.
It was dark at 6.10pm in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Woodbine when Fogarty pulled over the black Honda Odyssey driven by Matthews, a 46-year-old mother of seven wearing a black niqab - the traditional Muslim head-to-toe covering with a narrow opening for the eyes. He asked for her licence and gestured for her to lift her veil so he could verify her identity. She showed him “half” her face.
She would swear in a statutory declaration three days later that he then insisted on seeing her whole face and touched her veil in an attempt to take it off.
The police in-car video recording the 20-minute conversation shows her allegation to be false. It also shows Fogarty exerting considerable self-restraint against a barrage of angry words.
Things turn ugly when he gives her an infringement notice for a partially-obscured rear P-plate - an offence, he tells her, which carries a penalty of two demerit points and a $197 fine.
“Sorry, I’m not accepting that,” she says.
“This is clearly now racist.”
“Sorry?” Fogarty answers, taken aback.
“Firstly, I don’t appreciate being called racist. Just listen, please. Don’t call me racist.”
She replies: “You are racist. I will not accept [the ticket]. I’ll take you to court. I don’t care what you say, you’re not going to give me that ticket because I’ve got my P-plates on.
“You want to give me the ticket for rubbish. I’ve got seven kids.” It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for Matthews, just a few moments from home, rushing to get dinner for her large brood, being caught by an officer determined to apply the letter of the law, unmoved by her distress, and with that trademark traffic cop passive-aggressive patient reasonableness.
But rather than accepting that this is the way of things, and that it is pointless arguing, Matthews chose to play the race card.
For 20 minutes she verbally abuses Fogarty and repeatedly calls him a racist, at points wagging her finger in his face.
“You are racist, because you just looked at me and you see me with the niqab on and you couldn’t handle it. You look - my licence is fine, my car, everything is fine. I am 100 per cent. I am not going to accept it. I’m not going to take this rubbish, this crap. You are racist. All cops are racist.”
He replies: “If you want to discuss this reasonably I’ll discuss it with you. If you’re just going to yell abuse at me, OK.”
She answers: “Honestly, you are feeling guilty.”
“Why?” he asks.
“I can see it in your eyes,” she says. “You know you are giving me ticket for crap.”
“OK. OK, go back and sit in your car,” he says. “If you choose to take matters forward you would be wasting the court’s time. OK. Bye bye.”
She could have left it at that, or taken a legitimate avenue to dispute the fine.
But she chose to take umbrage and to seek advice from Mamdouh Habib. The Egyptian-born former Guantanamo Bay detainee alerted Channel 7 to her “good story” of police brutality, reportedly complained to the Anti-Discrimination Board, made representations to police on her behalf and, with his wife, accompanied her to court.
The one time Socialist Alliance-backed independent NSW election candidate has become something of a cause celebre among the “moral panic"-obsessed chattering classes, even starring this year in the play Waiting For Mamdouh, which toured the nation and won second prize in a NIDA competition.
Habib’s son has previously claimed he is a racism victim. In 2007, 19-year-old Mustafa was convicted of public mischief after he accused police of running over his foot after they pulled him over for talking on his mobile while driving. Video footage showed Mustafa lifting his foot toward
the rear wheel of the police car as the vehicle drove off, and then falling to the ground screaming in mock pain.
He escaped with a good behaviour bond after claiming that his father’s detention had traumatised him.
Absurd methods of claiming racism and police brutality have paid dividends in parts of southwestern Sydney, where police say they have been cowed by endless complaints.
If not for the pursuit of the story by radio 2GB talkshow host Jason Morrison, it’s likely the Matthews case would similarly have been swept under the carpet and Fogarty left with a blemish on his police record. Similarly, another dishonest declaration - by former justice Marcus Einfeld - would have been missed if had not been for this newspaper’s reporting.
“They would have toasted Fogarty,” says ex-detective Tim Priest. “The ticket would have been ripped up. He would have been subjected to a cultural awareness program.
“He was on a hiding to nothing except for that video.”
Matthews is appealing against her conviction on all grounds, according to her lawyer Stephen Hopper. It’s yet to be seen whether Hopper repeats the flimsy defence he gave to the court that it might have been another niqab-clad woman, not Matthews, who went to the police station and signed the false statutory declaration complaint.
After all, the station officer who took the complaint had said: “I’m looking at you and all I can see is two eyes.”
But all Hopper’s claims managed to do was bolster the case for banning niqabs and burqas in Australia, a situation that will only make life more difficult for the minority of Muslim women who wear the cultural garb.
Such is the ripple effect of Matthews’ reckless lie.
Harsh as it may seem to lock up a mother of seven whose initial offense was a badly displayed P-plate, it is about time someone was called to account for abusing the complaints system.
It does more than tie up court time. On a large scale it damages our system of justice, only increasing racial tension and leading to ever more draconian laws for the law-abiding.
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