Islamic Anti-war group to stage protests across US against headscarf ban in France

The Muslim Students of America (MSA), an Islamic pro-Saddam group active last year in organizing dozens of Iraq war protests throughout the United States, has declared January 17, 2004 as a day of mass protests at French diplomatic establishments in the US against the ban on wearing headscarfs imposed by the government of Northwest Arabia (formerly France or Lalalala France).

Read the press release from these radicals below to understand the poetic justice being meted out to Le-Surrenderese (the French) by the same people with whom they so foolishly sided last year against America.

MUSLIM STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA OPPOSE FRENCH PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC’S HIJAB BAN

With French President Jacques Chirac’s decision to ban religious insignia from schools, the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada is calling upon people of conscience to join them in protesting this infringement upon liberty and religious tolerance. The MSA of the US and Canada (MSA) believes that President Chirac’s ban on religious wear – which specifically targets Muslim females who wear hijab - signals one of the greatest setbacks for freedom and democracy in France since it became one of the democratic powers of the world. To deny a woman her God-given right to freely practice her religion does not only constitute a violation of her personal freedom, but it defies the very concept of secularism. By officially prohibiting religious practices that have no correlation with state functions, President Chirac is leading France down a dangerous path of banning the acts of the religiously devout in the name of secularism.

MSA will join the international day of protest in conjunction with human rights, civil rights and religious organizations around the world on Jan. 17, 2004. The protest will take place in cities where French consulates reside including: Washington, DC; Atlanta, GA; Houston, TX; Miami, FL; San Francisco, CA; and New York City, NY. A 48-hour call-in and email campaign will precede the protest, as all participating organizations will ask their members to call or email the French consulates to vocalize their opposition to the ban on religious wear in schools.

What: An International Day of Protest Against President Chirac’s Hijab Ban Where: French Consulates in the United States When: Jan. 17, 2004, Saturday Who: Muslim Students in the United States and Canada

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg	Freepers/Avg	Monthlies
29	Kentucky	175.00	4	43.75	178	0.98	10.00	1

This is not exactly about religious freedom -- and it is NOT an long held "custom". In fact, it bagan in the 1970s.

From the New York Post:

To start with, the term "foulard islamique" is inaccurate because it assumes that the controversial headscarf is an article of Islamic faith, which it emphatically is not. It is a political symbol shared by several radical movements that, each in its own way, tries to transform Islam from a religion into a political ideology.

One could describe these movements as Islamist, but not Islamic. A new word has been coined in Arabic to describe them: Mutuasslim. Its equivalent in Persian is Islamgara.

The foulard should be seen as a political symbol in the same way as Nazi casquettes, Mao Zedong caps and Che Guevara berets were in their times. It has never been sanctioned by any Islamic religious authority and is worn by a tiny minority of Muslim women.

It was first created in Lebanon in 1975 by Imam Mussa Sadr, an Iranian mullah who had become leader of the Shi'ite community there. Sadr wanted the foulard to mark out Shi'ite girls so that they would not be molested by the Palestinians who controlled southern Lebanon at the time.

In 1982, the Lebanese-designed headgear was imposed by law on all Iranian girls and women, including non-Muslims, aged six years and above. Thus, Iranian Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian women are also forced to wear a headgear that is supposed to be an Islamic symbol. The Khomeinist claim is that women's hair has to be covered because it emits rays that turn men "wild with sex."

From the mid 1980s, the foulard appeared in North Africa and Egypt before moving east to the Persian Gulf, the Indo-Pakistani Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It made its first appearance in France in 1984, brought in by Iranian Mujahedin asylum seekers. Today, thousands of women, especially new converts, wear it in Europe and North America.

That the foulard did not exist before 1975 is easy to verify. Muslim women could refer to their family albums to see that none of their female parents and ancestors ever wore it.

Megawati Sukarnoputri, President of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, does not wear it. Nor does Khalidah Zia, prime minister of Bangladesh, the world's second most populous country. Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, does not wear it, except inside Iran—where she would go to jail if she did not.

That the foulard is a political invention can be ascertained in two other ways. First, there is the Iranian law of 1982 that specifies the shape, size and even the "authorized" colors of the headscarf.

Second, the various Islamist movements have developed specific color schemes to assert their identity. The Khomeinists wear dark blue or brown. The Sunni Salafis, who sympathize with al Qaeda and the Taliban, prefer black. Supporters of Abu-Sayyaf and other Southeast Asian radical groups wear white or yellow. Supporters of Palestinian radical groups don checkered foulards.

Islamism is a totalitarian ideology like Communism and Fascism. And like them it loves uniforms. While it forces, or brainwashes, women into wearing the foulard, it also presses men to grow beards as an advertisement of piety.

Like people of other faiths and cultures, Muslim men and women often covered their heads. But the headgear used had no political significance and reflected local cultural, tribal and folkloric traditions. No one ever claimed that donning any particular headgear, whether for men or women, was a religious duty.…

What France is witnessing is not a clash of civilization between Islam and the West. It is a clash between a new form of fascism and democracy. Islamism must be exposed and opposed politically. To give it any religious credentials is not only unjust but also bad politics.

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