French Schoolgirl Shaves Head Protesting Hijab Ban 

French Schoolgirl Shaves Head Protesting Hijab Ban 

By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, October 2 (IslamOnline.net) – A French Muslim schoolgirl has shaved her head in protest at a ban on hijab in state schools.

Cennet Doganay, 15, took off her hijab as she was entering the Louis Pasteur Lycee high school in Strasbourg, eastern France, only to reveal a bald head.

Doganay, of Turkish descent, told reporters outside her school that she respected the law, but the law did not respect her religion.

Her mother told French daily Le Monde on Saturday, October 2, that her heart broke after seeing her daughter as such, but vowed to stand by her child till the end.

France has triggered a controversy by adopting a bill banning hijab and religious insignia in public schools.

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) dismissed the French move as "discriminatory".

Former French Interior and incumbent Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has long opposed the law, warning it would provoke a backlash among Muslims, who would view it as an "insult and punishment". 

Despair

Abdullah Milson, an official at the self-styled pro-hijab March 15 Committee, told IslamOnline.net that the Doganay’s incident is a telling example of the despair and disappointment of veiled schoolgirls, who want to strike a balance between religion and education.

He said the committee has been following up Doganay’s ordeal for a month, regretting the school’s officials refusal to even allow her in with a bandana.

Fatmah Al-Zehawi, chairperson of the French Women’s League, said Doganay’s "somewhat extremist" protest was driven by a deep sense of disappointment at the French move.

The March 15 committee was set up as a reaction to the anti-hijab law.

Comprising Muslim and non-Muslim figures and representatives of Islamic organizations in France, the body helps veiled girls psychologically and caters for those expelled by their schools for holding on to their headscarves.

In September, two Muslim sisters were expelled  from Henri Wallon Lycee school in the Paris northern suburb of Aubervilliers for wearing hijab.

According to a Reuters count, about 120 schoolgirls across France insisted on keeping their headscarves when school resumed on September 2, the date when the anti-hijab law came into effect.

School officials said only 19 girls were still insisting on wearing their headscarves in the Strasbourg.

Harmful

Meanwhile, Milso said the abduction of two French journalists in Iraq has done more harm than good to the hijab cause.

He said Doganay, for instance, found herself between a rock and a hard place as she was trying to choke back her feelings for the safety of the pair.

A self-styled Iraqi militant group calling itself the Islamic Army abducted on August 20 French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, demanding the French government to rescind the anti-hijab law.

Chairman of the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM) Dalil Boubakeur had said the estimated five million Muslims rejected the "odious blackmail" of the captors.

A CFCF delegation had visited Baghdad to help secure the release of the two reporters, an initiative was hailed by the French government.

A French mediator in Iraq said Wednesday, September 29, he was just waiting for a US authorization to extract the two French journalists by air.

Source: Islamonline.net