The French government's intention to ban Muslim head scarves in schools in order to defend the nation's secular character is being met with defiance by Muslims in France and elsewhere.
Protesters were to take to the streets in Paris and other major Western cities yesterday to show opposition to the proposal to ban religious attire, including the head scarf, in public schools.
In Paris, police expect at least 10,000 people at a march against the proposed law. Other protests are expected in the US, Canada and Britain.
The demonstrations would be the biggest coordinated protest against a draft law that will forbid Muslim head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses in French public schools.
The government is worried about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and intends to enact the law for the start of the school year in September.
It says Muslim scarves and other obvious religious symbols must be forced out of schools to keep them secular and avoid religious strife.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said protests would not be a positive contribution to the debate.
"If there is a protest one day, there will be a counter-protest the next," he said on Friday.
But many Islamic leaders say the law will stigmatize France's estimated 5 million Muslims, who make up 8 percent of the population.
Yesterday's march through northeastern Paris to the Place de la Nation was to begin at 1pm. It was called by the Party of French Muslims.
Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Mosque of Paris and president of the French council of the Muslim religion, discouraged Muslims from attending the protest, saying it would only exacerbate the anti-Muslim climate and create tensions for Muslims in Europe.
Boubakeur has called for calm in the French Muslim community "because we absolutely do not want confrontation."
Boubakeur's French Council of the Muslim Faith serves as a link to the government.
Protests are also expected in other French cities including Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux, Nice and Toulouse.
About 3,000 people took part in a similar protest in Paris on Dec. 21. More than half were women, girls and even young children wearing the hijab, or head scarf.
Protests have taken place elsewhere, too. Earlier this month, 700 Muslims marched through the Danish capital of Copenhagen to protest the proposed law.
Other protests were planned for yesterday, mostly outside French consulates and embassies in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC, and in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto in Canada, organizers said.
A few thousand people are expected in all, said Shaheen Kazi, national office manager at the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada.
"The hijab is so central to the Muslim woman's identity," Kazi said.
"If we don't stand up for this issue when it happens in a European country or anywhere else, then it could be like a wave that could carry on throughout Europe and then we don't know how far it would spread," she said.
In Britain, protests are planned outside the French Embassy in London and a French consulate in Edinburgh. They were called by the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Women Society.
"Hijab is part of a Muslim woman's faith," the association said on its Web site.
"The French government must realize that it has made a huge mistake," it said.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS