france has the largest muslim population in europe, nearly six million people, and for a country holding that record, it is not treating its muslim population with respect. the most recent instance being the french government banning french athletes wearing the hijab at the paris olympics next year. well, this move has received wide scale condemnation, including by the un. in this edition of the spot. like we look at why

france is enacting such restrictions on in muslim women and whether there is pattern by france in discriminating and gets muslims all together. first let me introduce our guests. anthony hall, professor of globalization, lethbridge university joins us from lethbridge. also joining us is fahima mahomet who's a broadcaster and executive coach who joins us from london. welcome to you both. i'll start with you first, anthony hall. uh, the incident, as we understand it, the french government banning french athletes for wearing the hijab at the paris olympics. now, this is what the french sports minister has said an explanation from him, he's in favor of a quote strict regime of secularism applied rigorously in the field of sport, and my question to you, aside from your reaction to this is, isn't that in itself, this stance a form of discrimination? well, discrimination is a tricky. the word uh, i

think the word word that i'd like to see uh put front and center is secularization and certainly islamophobia. now to me, the quintessen of islamophobia was concting this 911 event to make seam that radical muslims did because they hated the freedoms of the west, it was a concocted job, an israeli zionist lead job, 9:11 so this... islamophobia uh that infects people's minds, has been engineered and created. now uh, this word secularization, we're talking about france here, france has a little something called the french revolution in 1789, which was largely about secularization, overthrowing the divine right of monarchs and the clergy, and so uh, west has developed

this, some see the communist revolution as a sort of outgrow of the french revolution, and the communist revolution was about secularization, materialism, that the main way that humans define and negotiate their relationships has to do with economics and material relations, so this secularization that is uh, being demonstrated here and the obsessions of those who want to take it. uh beyond the point of uh respecting fellow human beings, but imposing some kind of doctriner uh principle that they believe in uh in terms of dress or how you do schooling or what you wear at the olympics, all of that is uh uh we need to put this in context. well thanks for putting into context, but i'm going to take the context background info that you gave to us, which is really appreciated and put it uh much more clear to youd in terms of uh let's say you are

athlete, you are a muslim, you believe in the hijab, and you're very good at let's say archery or let's say swimming, and you have very promising future in that field enough to qualify for the olympics, but you can't go to the olympics if you're a french muslim because of this uh, i guess ban that the government, the french government feels is necessary, how would that make you feel? tell us what person in those shoes is feeling? yeah, um, it's a great question and i think that it's quite obvious. to lot of women generally that when they are told what to wear um it's definitely infringing upon an individual choice and freedom and it's a also an oppression. i think as history shows that there's lots of dictatorship around the fact that when you want to control particular sector society then you will actually you pick on something like you know trying to challenge what someone wears and dictate. so i think it's a much wider very very arming message that's been sent across even though... french has its uh, fundamental

principle of secularism, it shouldn't really infringe upon individual choices, as well as you disregard the inclusitivity of spiritual um sort of like... international sporting events, because in in the spirit of sport, it should really be wide and open everyone, and we all have our individual choice, and even if it's uh under a certain rule, i think it again, it's it's more of a dictatorship as well as an oppression to a particular group, so it's definitely worrying and it's definitely something we need to review lot closer and see how this unfolds, because it is targeting a particular group and it really is not uh sort of... in with the values of the west, the un in general? well, france seems to be very focused on the muslim community as it should, but maybe for all the wrong reasons, anthony hall, when it passes a law such as this anti-separ separatism law, which has been criticized rightly for singling out. one of the things that it does,

intervening in mosks and associations, responsible for their administration as well as controlling the finances of musfiliated associations and non-governmental organizations. what is france? feel that it has to pretty much control mosks in that respect when it comes to muslims. well, i believe uh that this obsession with secularization that i introduced, has lot to do with it. now, i heard my fellow presenter here, talk about individual rights that the individual rights of muslims are being uh infringed, but then there's a discussion of group rights and treating. all members of a group in a discriminatory way, so this is a big deal in the west, this uh group right versus individual right, and how do we balance the two? um, i mean, if uh, if the position is, like say you go to war with france, it's conceivable that muslims will

join the french military, should uh, the french military be open to distinct forms of uniforms for muslims in the french army, let's... move it away from the olympics, i'm just trying to advance a discussion here and think this through. well, i mean that uh, what do you think about that analogy there, first of all, um, because there's different venues, in case of a war, or the military, i should say, i think that that would be a unique one. i don't know if that fits to the conversation, what think? i'd like to think of it is a different sort of sense, at the end of the day, for example, international human rights standards. emphasizes that the restrictions on religious expression should be minimal and justifiable under a specific circumstance and france strict regulations on religious attire including the bike ban for example uh may raise questions whether or not these restrictions meet international

criteria and i don't think that they are addressing this on that level from the un perspective and it's just been out there to say under the umbrella of secularism but does actually infringe even on the un standards of human rights, so when you look at it as much as you say group or individual regardless, um, i think we need to question, where do we have those boundaries and lines when it comes to the human rights standards? should there be such boundaries and lines, anthony, when it comes to muslims, i mean one of these things based on the separatism law that i'm looking at, which is pretty unbelievable, is that it bricks the educational choices. of muslims making homeschooling subject official permission, would you allow that to happen to your family if you were a muslim? uh, well, i think this is very good place to dig into this issue, because home schooling is much being discussed in canada right now, because

schooling is doing transgender experiments trying to convince young people that they should change their gender, trying to persuade them that they need surgery to be mutilated, that they... need hormones and such, and muslims here in canada are leading the rejection of this, and people are facing this crisis in canada, wanting homeeschooling, and i'm wondering if homeschooling might be the place to say to the french government, well, if you are, so obsessed with you know being secular and conformist and violating our human rights to express ourselves as individuals and groups. uh, what about if you're if the muslim community in france became organized to say, well we're going to do our own school, uh, and we want you know our percentage of the tax money re recompensed to us for you, some support in our schooling, and so we don't

really want to be part of your your school system, we we would like to have our own homeschooling, which we could organize in a small way or a large way, and uh, and and we'll live and let live in that in that way, we don't like the way you're uh forcing your majoritarian control of the french government on us, which is very significant part of france, but since you're in insisting on doing these horrific things to us, we want to have our own schools and uh we want to raise our children uh, not in a woke way, you know, this woke thing about forcing uh, you know, homosexual, gay, lesbian things on, that doesn't ash well with muslims, as we can see in canada, i'm sure it's the same in, so how about being a little bit, assertively sept with the government of france and saying, let us develop our own education, and since since you're you we don't agree with your type of education, that's uh what we're asking, and

and we have to share a country here, i believe that number of muslim people there are probably committed to being citizens of france and uh making a go of it in france, but we need adaptations, well that that sounds like an at least a proposition there, if my homem, if i'm not mistaking, something that perhaps can be contemplated, but when it comes to this french uh president, that it was just years ago when he said uh islam is a crisis, muslims need to be reformed, even the clerics need to go through schooling in order to adhere to the type of islam that the french president and his state thinks should be exercised in his country. i don't know if he's going to uh stand up for muslims standing up against the government in terms of having a budget pass for for them. i mean, what, does the french president not realize? what he's saying and the impression he makes when he says clerics need to be reformed and

islam needs to be reformed. i mean, i'm not say that's a blasphemy, but that is very offensive, give given a muslim to hear those words. absolutely, it's a believe system that has been concucted, and at the end of the day it also shows that um, it's more of a state control that he's trying to you know uh sort of place france under instead of the uh sort of democratic. sort of like society and state that every sort of western um sort of uh country sort of tries to sort of say that keeps them apart from you backward or other countries so what they are exercising is it sort of the same same way as they um scrutinize um sort of the yeast for example when they are doing it just because they choosing to have the other end of the extreme so i think that we need to be very very concerned about the way in which uh we seeing france to be more of a a dictatorship uh as well as um trying to um target certain groups

and especially the muslims in particular and um having a state control where they not even giving parents a right to um educate their own children and they have to be involved even in the home so that is very worrying and it's really no different to any other maybe communist country or dictatorship or autocratic system so i think that if they can do... that successfully do that with one group, they can definitely do that with someone else, so if you're not implied and part of the umbrella of islam or muslims, then if they can successfully do it there, then other groups and other religious parties or other sort of like communities should also be worried if you know they going to be targeted next in the same way, indeed all right, let's uh get your thoughts on this european islamophobia report uh conducting in the year 2022, if i may ask you there uh anthony hall, some of the findings i'm going to begin with one, if you are a french muslim applying for job, you are five times more likely to face discrimination than a

non-muslim. the same types of findings were found for housing for muslims and also for police brutality. so the big question is, a country like france, that houses or has the most number of muslims in europe. why is it that there's islamophobia uh in this scale, to the scale that we're seeing based on this report? and why does france have the most muslims in? i mean the fact is this is really deeply rooted in history with algeria especially, and there was point at which france actually treated algeria as part of france, and essentially demean the the human rights and citizenship of indigenous algerians who are mostly muslims, so this oppression of muslims, is very deep. it's part of a consistent package uh france colonized you much of africa and is facing

that you know the united states is facing the poverty of this secular approach to the to the max um where uh you know we become without principles without ethics without values uh without respect for the rule of law and such so uh this uh has to be uh confronted. the the the depth of this, well the confrontation uh comes uh with gear, by gear, mean the type of gear the muslims where and that findings that reported in this or that i so related in this report that was islamophobia in europe of which france was the case study, one of things uh regarding employment it said if you are a muslim woman uh wearing head scarf, you have 1%, 1% chance of finding employments, why is this muslim gear so much a thorn or a piece of uh or

issue for uh at least in france, 2004 it banned head scarves, 2010 it passed. the ban of full face valles uh we're looking at uh 2023 uh the abaya there was a ban on that and now of course uh our news piece that we began with in terms of the the swimware why is does the muslim gear on women even an issue to pass laws banning them? i think this multi-faceted uh reasons for it um obviously the the actual ban itself is such a disparity and which contradicts the principles of equality and fairness and also whereby they're getting away with it because the eu and the un are and have role to play with regards to addressing discrimination within any member states and ensuring that the eu adhered to principles of religious freedom and non-discrimination being essential and i guess that we're targeted generally across the globe because we are very strong in our

faith and we don't conform and if there are agendas that are being put out there with regards whether it's an education or anywhere else, it's always out of fear and threat because we are the one long standing, very wide uh sort of religion that is ever so much growing in numbers across the globe as well as we are still strict here to our sort of religious views and ways, but at the same time we are still able to be quite successful in the west and and still conform and integrate, and maybe that is as a threat um there could be many reasons for it um to sort of you, uh dum us down or you know to... control and to dictate, because you know, obviously there's power within the way in which we believe, feel and act, and we're not easily swayed by even you know this wokeness or feminism or anything that people even in the west, you know under even secularism or non-religion may even find a problem, whereas with us it's already embedded in stone in our

traditions and our cultures and our beliefs. anthony hall, i guess our talks about the un and the eu, it's worth mentioning that they as institutions. need to somewhat be more proactive when it comes to muslims in general and this case with france and the laws that he has enacted, why uh have i don't want to say why they short changed muslims, but they not being more viciforous, even uh, let alone act on it, well there's a political reality here that i think i would like to address from the west, uh, and uh, you know, there's a an understanding that the jewish supremacy in government of biden, and you know, it's in all the western countries has become sort of intolerable that we have no say in our own government anymore and let's just consider what about the muslim migration into israel? isn't that happening? aren't they sort of supposed to be liberal democratic uh israel? no, there is no muslim immigration into israel, and yet israeli agents and people

like soros are forcing this rule on europe that there must be open immigration uh of largely muslims from africa and such uh into you know germany and the eu countries and and and you this is creating a backlash uh among western people, largely white people, like you could say indigenous european people, and it's not totally to be dismissed as just bigottry and racism and such, like why is it that israel needs to have ethnic ruled so that israel is for jews and to develop uh that culture, but the same doesn't apply to europeans, north americans and united states, there's a totally open border uh with people coming from all over the world flocking without going through any vetting process into the united states, this immigration uh thing and what is behind it like the

financing of george soros, you know, very uh well-known uh age. of a zario american empire, which is failing, christianity is not a success story these days, and it's under assault, and it's definitely that the people pushing this woke agenda have special animosity towards white christians, so the fact that this is unfolding in this way, now there's macron trying to play all sides, he's an obvious rothchild show, and you know he is representing the that faction as you know eu is is to represent that banking cartel, so the usual suspects that we can talk about on press tv, but somebody like me it's... hard to talk about it on western media, we don't have opening for this kind of discussion in western media, so i think it's a incument upon folks in the theocracy of iran for

instance, to you know consider what we're going through in the west, sure, well one of the things that's pretty amazing when it comes to this whole uh islamophobia and anti-islam sentiment, if you agree from is the fact that you have many politicians in europe who are uh their platform, part of it is islam uh and they promote that and then they have followers and they have lot of supporters that uh can we who can we blame there? what can be blamed there? is it because the product of the society in the way that anti islam sentiment is maybe promoted through other the culture uh through media? what have you? or is it that uh they feel threaten by muslims in any shape or form? what do you think? i think it's a little bit of everything that you suggested and i think there's an agenda in mainstream media to uh promote uh certain minority groups uh within certain faiths in order for everyone to you know be the sheep that they've got following with regards to having narrative about for

example muslims and that's why when anyone sees a muslim the first thing they say is either terrorist or oppressive or you know anything like that because it's been subliminal messages for decades um in the media with regards to it and you know even probably even beyond uh 911 and at the end of the day that was just the jump start where you got a real excuse now for uh you know promoting this kind of material and that's all people see when they see muslims and their voices are never really genuinely heard and the the norm and the everyday people and the ones that are working and integrating and living for generations are not necessarily be heard or spoken to and even if the end up for the same rights and the same values as everybody else they're not looked on as you know as equal in way or even seen in that way if anything was to go wrong mr. are also the first to come certain things, but you're never going to see that, so yes, media is powerful, and um, the thing is we are moving away from that with other platforms that are coming up and uh seeing, but obviously if

you've already got a belief, you're going to follow what you're going to follow and you're going to jump on that and wagon, so it's easy, so until you know criminalizing uh islamophobia is going to be an idea considered as criminal offence a kind to anti-semitism, then then yeah we might have some sort of way, but we need more leaders, we need more. um, obviously we've got you, powerful countries, unfortunately that are not even on our sides, even if they claim to be muslims, for example, you know, in in the middle east, so then we do have a political problem within our own um sort of muslim communities as well, for not actually being on the side that we need for our own people, so there is a wider conversation beyond just france at the moment, thank you for that, we appreciated faimad broadcaster and executive coach from london, anthony. thank you, professor globalization university from, thank you to you both, with that we come to an end for this edition of the spotlight from the team, it's goodbye. together, we have

shown that when europe is bold and united, it gets things done. 95 million people in the are threatened by poverty, there is a broken energy market while the energy and arms industries are making record profit, last year is seen that... italy was better performing as compared to other industrial economies in in europe, this year and this quarter it seems the the opposite.

in this week's episode of iran tech we've come to stan province to check out a pharmaceuticals company that specialized in making drugs for livestock, pultry and various types of fish uh in all sorts of different categories, so liquid solutions, ointments and so on and so forth. so we're going to take a look at some of the exclusive drugs that they make here and only here in iran and talk about the science behind it and get to know the process that go behind the manufacturing of different types of. stay tuned.

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