A Sydney teenager has filed a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission after he was banned from attending his coming school formal because he wore a scarf with the keffiyeh pattern to his graduation ceremony.

The teenager, who requested not to be identified, said staff members accused him of making a political statement and prevented him from posing with friends and a senior staff member for a group photograph while he wore his scarf.

The 17-year-old said his older sister handed him the garment as he waited to receive his graduation certificate so he could wear the symbol of his Palestinian heritage on the most important day of his schooling life.

But when the teenager returned to his seat, staff members approached him twice and told him to hand over his scarf.

Two weeks later, the teenager was called to a senior staff member’s office and told that he was not permitted to attend his year 12 formal – to be held next Thursday, November 28 – as a result of his decision to wear the scarf.

  • BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 month ago

    It’s some people’s heritage to wear nazi swastikas. Doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.

    Wow…

    Comparing a high school student who wanted to wear the flag of their ancestral homeland on their graduation day to…

    Nazi Germany. Do you know where the swastika comes from? It’s actually an ancient Hindu symbol that’s been used throughout India for thousands of years.

    So are you going to tell the world’s Hindu population they’re not allowed to celebrate their religious heritage because white supremacists on the other side of the world decided to steal a symbol from it?

    I don’t think wearing a symbol started by the guy who invented airplane hijacking and suicide vests for children is a good one.

    Wow…

    First, the first use of a suicide vest was in 1881, and it was in Russia. The first airplane hijacking (or skyjacking) was in Peru in 1931. So idk where you pulled “invented airplane hijacking and suicide vests for children” from other than out your ass.

    Second, since this was a school function, how many country’s flags were flown in that auditorium? Because the British, and by extension the Australian, flag I’m sure is symbolic of a plethora of cruelty and inhumane actions throughout their colonizing history.

    And last time I checked, the Australian government didn’t have a phenomenal history of treating their indigenous population with the utmost respect and humanity.

    So maybe worry less about a kid wearing a scarf with the flag of their heritage on it and the “sYmBoLiSm” of it all, and just let a kid be a kid. Or, if you’re going to bar one symbol for being “unacceptable” due to individual interpretation, then they all need to be taken down. You don’t get to say a Palestinian flag is controversial and upsetting, but an Australian one isn’t, or any country’s flag for that matter.