{"id":43783,"date":"2015-03-01T23:15:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-01T15:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=43783"},"modified":"2015-03-01T22:58:18","modified_gmt":"2015-03-01T14:58:18","slug":"online-campaign-nets-20000-for-quebec-woman-told-to-remove-hijab-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/03\/01\/online-campaign-nets-20000-for-quebec-woman-told-to-remove-hijab-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Online campaign nets $20,000 for Quebec woman told to remove hijab in court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sonia<\/a>
Sonia Sevilla \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MONTREAL\u2014Support has been pouring in for a Quebec woman who was refused her day in court because she was wearing a hijab, including a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $20,000 in its first day.<\/p>\n

Rania El-Alloul expressed her gratitude Saturday for the campaign which was set up to raise money to help her buy a car after a judge refused to hear her case to retrieve her seized vehicle last Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am receiving support from everywhere, because I know I said the truth,\u201d El-Alloul said in a phone interview from her home in Montreal. \u201cThe headscarf is my choice and my faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Vancouver and a Toronto resident used the website gofundme on Friday to raise the money.<\/p>\n

Campaign co-funder Nouman Ahmad said he was \u201cdismayed\u201d when he heard media reports that El-Alloul was told that her case against the province\u2019s auto insurance board would not be heard unless she removed her headscarf.<\/p>\n

Judge Eliana Marengo said that she wanted her courtroom to be secular and El-Alloul\u2019s Islamic headscarf was inappropriate.<\/p>\n

Ahmad and his friend Rayan Rafay, who had never tried crowdfunding before, were pleasantly surprised when their campaign spread rapidly over social media. They received 400 donations and surpassed their goal of $20,000 in just over 24 hours. Ahmad says the response sends a strong message about Canadian values.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor someone to be denied justice in a court because they were wearing a hijab is just very strange for a place like Canada,\u201d Ahmad said. \u201cThis is not the opinion of most Canadians we know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmad plans to keep the fund open, with additional donations going toward El-Alloul\u2019s legal fees. He hopes to fly to Montreal to present her with the cheque in person.<\/p>\n

The judge\u2019s decision has drawn widespread condemnation from citizens, politicians and civil rights groups across the country. A spokesperson from the Prime Minister\u2019s office said Friday that a \u201cif someone is not covering their face, we believe they should be allowed to testify.\u201d<\/p>\n

A separate gofundme campaign for legal fees has been started by a former Vancouver resident who now lives in California.<\/p>\n

Not everyone supports El-Alloul, however. Ahmad had to limit comments on his gofundme site after a number of angry responses.<\/p>\n

El-Alloul\u2019s court case was suspended indefinitely after she refused to remove her scarf. El-Alloul says the incident has left her feeling afraid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to speak to a judge in the court and the judge herself is not listening to you…I felt afraid,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now El-Alloul is speaking with lawyers and plans to file a complaint against the judge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important is to get respect,\u201d she said. \u201cI gave her respect. She didn\u2019t give me my respect. I don\u2019t want this thing to happen to anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the Court of Quebec said Friday it is standing by Marengo\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL\u2014Support has been pouring in for a Quebec woman who was refused her day in court because she was wearing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":43784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","mauthors-morgan-lowrie","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}