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Controversy over
the law drags on in France
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PARIS, October 20 (IslamOnline.net &
News Agencies) - In the first case since the activation of the
controversial law banning conspicuous religious symbols, two
French Muslim schoolgirls were expelled from their school in
eastern France over hijab.
Dounia, and Khouloude aged 12 and 13
of the seventh grade were expelled Tuesday, October 19, from
the Jean Mace school in the eastern
French city of Mulhouse for refusal to take off their hijab,
Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.
“The disciplinary council has
decided to definitively exclude the two pupils from the school,”
Reuters quoted Michelle Feder-Cunin, the school headmistress as
saying.
She added meetings with the two
students to urge them to comply with the French law had proved
futile.
“In the past two months we have had
several meetings with the families and with these students.”
France has triggered a controversy
by
adopting a bill
banning hijab and religious insignia in public schools that went
effective mid September.
Risking Expulsion
Around 70 Muslim schoolgirls risk
expulsion from school over refusal to take off their hijab,
according to French education minister, Francois Fillon.
“The law applies to everybody,”
Reuters quoted him as saying.
There are at present 72 school
students within the state school system in France who are breaking
the new law, according to education ministry figures.
The father of one of the expelled
students said he could not understand the school decision to shun
out his daughter.
“She was a top student last year,
first in her class, she had no problems, she went to gym class,
did everything, was even her class delegate,” Lazhar Fortas told
Reuters.
The parents of the
two Muslim students have eight days to appeal the school decision.
Islam sees hijab as an obligatory
code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s
affiliations - unlike the symbolic Christian crucifixes or Jewish
Kappas.
Controversy
The issue of hijab has sparked much
controversy in France and worldwide.
On Saturday, December 6, French
President Jacque Chirac antagonized the around 5-million-strong
Muslim community in France describing hijab as “sort of
aggression.”
Former French Interior and incumbent
Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, for his part, has long opposed
the law, warning it would provoke a backlash among Muslims, who
would view it as an
“insult and punishment”.
The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW)
dismissed the French move as
“discriminatory”.
Early October, a French Muslim
schoolgirl has shaved her head in protest at the ban on hijab.
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.
An armed group calling itself the
Islamic Army in Iraq kidnapped two French journalists, Chesnot of
Radio France and Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper August 20,
demanding the French government to revoke its law banning hijab in
public schools.
Source:
Islamonline.net
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