Banning hijab means "excluding Muslim females from getting such rights as access to education and work," said Mrs Gaballah

By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, December 18 (IslamOnline.net) – France’s Muslim organizations and leftist parties Thursday, December 18, branded President Jacques Chirac’s call for a law banning religious symbols, particularly hijab, in public schools and institutions as a violation of religious freedom.

"The proposals to ban religious symbols stem from a narrow-minded perception of secularism," Fouad Olawi, deputy chairman of the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM), told IslamOnline.net.

"It is also a violation of religious and personal freedoms," he asserted.

Chirac announced Wednesday, December 17, that : "Islamic veil - whatever name we give it - the kippa and a cross that is of plainly excessive dimensions: these have no place in the precincts of state schools.

He asserted that "a law is necessary" to ban religious symbols in public schools and state institutions.

Olawi said that Muslims – the largest minority in the country with a five-million population – now "suspect a tendency to curb their presence and religious freedom" in the rigidly-secular France.

Amar Lasfar, the president of Lille's Muslim Municipality, asserted that any law banning hijab would be challenged via all possible peaceful ways.

"Passing such a law is unconstitutional, and Muslim organizations and groups  would stand against it even in courts, " he told IOL in as furious as challenging tone.

Lasfar cited the ruling issued the State Council, the highest judicial authority in the country, in 1989 which concluded that hijab poses no problem whatsoever as long as it is not a source for harassment or a disturbance of the public order.

‘Exclusive’

For Muslim women, the ban would be much harsher, since taking off the hijab would not be an easy thing, with observers predicting this would drive them towards isolation and then weaken their chances for integration.

"Calls for banning the hijab mean excluding Muslim females from getting such rights as access to education and work," said Nura Gaballah, chairwoman of the French Muslim Women Society.

"Muslim women would be then considered insiders in any place they go to, something which is against all values enshrined in the French law and established by the Revolution," she told IOL.

According to Islamic shariaa (law) hijab is obligatory for women, while this is not the case of the cross in Christianity or the Kappa in Judaism.

Furthermore, added the Muslim activist, Chirac sent the wrong message in his speech by implicitly associating Islamic beliefs with sexism.

Chirac called for a law to stop patients refusing treatment from a doctor of the opposite sex, saying some parties – which he stopped short of identifying – have a backwareded perception of sex equality.

"To think that Islam disregards rights of women - and therefore they should be protected - is a traditional incorrect reading of the real Islamic conception of sex equality," Gaballah averred.

Leftists Join Forces

In the meantime, the ban also sent shockwaves among French leftist parties, which slammed the move as potentially counterproductive.

Chirac’s statement opens the door for a circumstantial law, which gives the feeling that it is mainly targeting Muslims in the country, said the secretary general of the Green Party.

He said the 1989 State Council decisions were enough to iron out any differences triggered by hijab.

For its part, French Communist Party (PCF) leader Marie George Buffet regretted that Chirac took exceptional measures hindering the road for immigrants to integrate in the French community.

Such problems could have been addressed by ways other than resorting to difficult-to-implement law, she said.

Jews Support

On the other extreme, the council of Jewish organizations in France lauded Chirac’s position.

In a statement, the council said Chirac’s speech was based on the principle that whoever wants to live in France must abide by its laws.

It also support Chirac’s refusal to endorse a recommendation for making the Muslim Eid al-Adha and the Jewish Yom Kippur as state holidays for Muslims and Jewish students in government schools.