Moratti said there will never be faith-or –ethnicity-based schools in Italy.

ROME, September 13, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Italian Education Minister Letizia Moratti has ruled out any ban on hijab, saying female Muslim students are entitled to wear the headcover in state schools and institutes.

Moratti said in statements to the press, carried by the Middle East News Agency (MENA) Monday, September 12, that freedom of religion and human rights are enshrined for foreigners and immigrants, Muslims or non-Muslims.

She added there would never be faith-or–ethnicity-based schools in Italy.

In June, Italian politicians and Muslim leaders reacted angrily to statements by a minister from the anti-immigrant Northern League (LN) that Muslim women covering their faces in public should be fined.

Marco Rizzo of the Communist party said at the time Justice Minister Roberto Castelli and his LN colleagues were “at the threshold of incitement to racial and religious hatred.”

Describing it as a religious symbol and not an obligatory dress code as Muslims believe, France adopted a bill banning hijab in state-run schools and public institutions in March 2004.

Shortly afterwards, other European countries, chiefly Germany, followed the French lead.

The French ban, described by international rights watchdogs as amounting to religious discrimination, prompted demonstrations across Europe.

International figures stood behind the Muslim right, including London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who described the French move as an “anti-Muslim measure” and accused French President Jacques Chirac of playing a “terribly, terribly dangerous game.”

Moratti further said the government needs an “Italian Islam” based on respect of law and Italian values and heritage.

Italy in no way wants to “confiscate” Islamic traditions or values of its Muslim immigrants.

“We want to reach a halfway house that preserves for Muslims their traditions and values, and in the meantime ensures respect of law and constitution,” she said.

Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said in July an umbrella Muslim organization will be established to be the representative face of the Muslim minority in the country and liaise with the government on their behalf.

There are an estimated 1.5 million Muslims in Italy, a country of about 58 million people.

Islam is the least represented of the monotheistic faiths in Rome’s corridors of power. Unlike Judaism, Buddhism and some Protestant denominations, Islam is not officially recognized by the state.

Add to that only some 50,000 Muslims have the right to vote and there are no national politicians who are known to be Muslims.