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Doganay
says she respected the law, but the law did not respect her
religion
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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.
