BRITISH Muslim women launched a campaign yesterday to safeguard the use of the Islamic headscarf, saying they would apply all peaceful and legal means to protect a woman`s right to wear it.

The Muslim Women`s Society (MWS) and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) said they were creating an "Assembly for the Protection of the Hijab" as the headscarf is known.

The initiative, otherwise known as ProHijab, was being set up "to address this serious issue and to use all peaceful and legal means to protect the right of any woman to wear the Hijab", they said in a statement.

The new assembly will be inaugurated next Monday by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, they said.

In Britain the wearing of a Muslim headscarf or Sikh turban or Jewish kipa is allowed. But new legislation introduced in France banning conspicuous religious insignia from state schools in the country has provoked outrage in the British Muslim community.

Among those involved in the new British initiative is prominent Egyptian-born cleric Yussef al-Qaradawi, currently at the centre of a political storm in Britain over his controversial views on Palestinian suicide bombers.

Another participant is Tareq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen and grandson of Hassan El-Banna, founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Ramadan took part in campaigning in France against the ban on headscarves and other religious insignia.

He was investigated by the Paris prosecutor`s office after publicly criticising "French Jewish intellectuals".

In February London`s mayor, Livingstone, a veteran left-winger, criticised the French ban on Islamic headscarves in state schools, saying it pandered to racist sentiment in society.