Muslims Protest Head-Scarf Ban in France

MyWay News ^

[Happy2BMe]

Jan 17, 9:42 AM (ET)

By ELAINE GANLEY

PARIS (AP) - Shouting "The veil is my choice," hundreds of people marched in Paris on Saturday as part of global protests against the French government's plan to ban Muslim headscarves in schools.

Muslims from all over France took part in the Paris rally, expected to draw at least 10,000. Many of the protesters were women in headscarves and bearded men in robes.

"We're here for our liberty," said Fatiha Hossol, from the southeastern city of Lyon. "It's our religious obligation to honor our God."

Algerian-born Kawtar Fawzy, 30, also traveled from Lyon. "When I came here, they told me France was the land of human rights. I found out it's the opposite," she said, amid protesters waving French flags.

(AP) A Turkish woman holds a banner that reads: "Law against the veil or against Islam" during a...
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From London to Baghdad, people around the world took to the streets Saturday to show opposition to the proposal to ban religious attire, including the headscarf, in French public schools.

The government, worried about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, intends to enact the law for the start of the 2004-2005 school year in September. It says Muslim scarves and other obvious religious symbols must be barred from schools to keep them secular and avoid religious strife.

But, many Islamic leaders say the law will stigmatize France's estimated 5 million Muslims, who make up 8 percent of the population.

In London, several hundred people demonstrated across from the French Embassy in the upscale Knightsbridge area, waving signs and chanting: "If this is democracy, we say: 'No, merci!'"

"The (French) government is isolating Muslims and setting a dangerous precedent," said Ihtisham Hibatullah," spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain. "Muslims see it as an aggravation."

Dozens of women, veiled in black scarves, marched through the main city of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, to express their solidarity with Muslims in France.

"Why should anyone interfere with what I want to wear. If I revolt against this transgression I will be called an extremist. Is it fair?" said Asiya Andrabi, whose Dukhtaran-e-Millat, or Daughters of Faith, is a radical separatist group that demands Kashmir's merger with Pakistan.

Other protests were expected in the United States and Canada in what would be the biggest coordinated demonstration against a law that would also ban Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses in French public schools.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said such protests are not a positive contribution to the debate.

"If there is a protest one day, there will be a counter-protest the next," he said Friday.

Saturday's march through northeastern Paris to the Place de la Nation was called by the Party of French Muslims. Before the rally began, a small group of men pulled out a prayer rug and said prayers at the Place de la Republique.

Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Mosque of Paris and president of the French council of the Muslim religion, discouraged Muslims from attending, saying the protest would only exacerbate the anti-Muslim climate and create tensions for them in Europe.

He has called for calm among France's Muslims "because we absolutely do not want confrontation." Boubakeur's French Council of the Muslim Faith serves as a link to the government.

Protests also were expected in other French cities and outside French consulates and embassies in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto in Canada, organizers said.

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 headscarf. Protests have taken place elsewhere, too. Earlier this month, 700 Muslims marched through the Danish capital of Copenhagen.

In Iraq, an Islamic group distributed an open letter to Chirac in mosques calling for the government to reverse its position. A demonstration drew fewer than 100 students Saturday at Baghdad's Al Mustansiriya University.

Shaheen Kazi, national office manager at the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada, said protests were expected to draw a few thousand people.

"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."

In London, Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien said the British government supported the right of all people to display religious symbols.

"Whilst it is for individual countries to decide, in Britain we are comfortable with the expression of religion, seen in the searing of the hijab, crucifixes or the kippa," O'Brien said in a statement. "Integration does not require assimilation."

[Calpernia]

Seems the kittens got her first.

[Jackknife]

[Gabz]

Hi right back to you!!!!

I'm about to call it a night my self as well.

[Happy2BMe]

[WestCoastGal]

Just wondering why her response to a thread from a year ago???

[MeekOneGOP]

Side note: Having an imam around to converse the complexities of Islam could have certain enrichment for us all.

Yeah, if he'll just post some more. Maybe so since he posted his email addy .....

[SJackson]

[Happy2BMe]

Thanks.

[concretebob]

So the "freedom fighters" using the mosques in Iraq are doing allahs will, eh?
Last I checked, we don't use houses of worship as armories, and we don't kill innocents.
Tell your "brothers in arms" in Iraq to put on uniforms, come out in the open and fight like men, not cowards.
your "freedom fighters" are COWARDS.
you hear me you sniveling little puke?
See my tagline for future reference, you miserable excuse for a human.
You're a waste of space.
You signed up today to defend islam?
You wasted your time.
There is no defense for the taking of innocent lives.
There is no excuse for killing children.
and learn to spell, you stupid troll.

[Calpernia]

IMO, that article might have been pulled in a search engine.

[fortunecookie]

These sentances refer to the time of the crusaders and other times they were at war. And the interpretation of these is about the invaders who invade your city! it is not telling muslims to go kill people that are not hurting them.

Were the American men, women and children on Flight 93 which crashed right here in western PA on Sept 11 at war with Islam? Did they wake up and decide today is the day I fight? NO! Only 19 men decided that. Muslim men with extremist beliefs, trained to fight and kill, trained right here in our country, trained to fit in, even if it meant adopting behaviors of the 'infidel' and pretending to become 'Americanized'. Playing us, working with us, learning with us, and then, at a time appointed to them by other murderous men, murdering thousands outright. Murdering people not at war with them. Not murdering because of attack to their persons or countries. Just because they were told to, told it was 'right'.

And it is against islam to invade anyone's land. It is also against islam to kill Women, Children, Elderly, and men who are not at war.

And when the planes crashed that horrible morning, crashed into buildings meant to cripple us and demean us and kill thousands, by men who claimed to do it for the glory of Islam no less, what of the kindness to the women and children and elderly on board those planes, and the men also, as we were not at war?

And does that this sentence from the time of the Crusades, does it reflect how the people of medieval Spain were treated by the Moors when they came in, conquered the Spainairds, converted centuries old Cathedrals into mosques and forbid Catholic practices until being driven out by the Spanish a few hundred years later?

Please do not try to use these sentences to defend the stoning of the 19 year old girl in Iran, a girl with diminished intelligence, forced into prostitution at the age of 8!!!! What of her 'husband' who forced her into this nefarious life? The others who abused her? No, only she is being sentenced to death. And how many more like her. And worst of all, they 'punishers' claim it is required in sacred texts. Where is the mercy to the victim? The punishment of the real evil-doers?

[Happy2BMe]

Do you suppose yousifa was sincerely trying to reach out in earnest sincerity?

[506trooper]

[506trooper]

Bah! See item #3 in post #23.....spin it any way you want, the proof is in the events of the past 32 (or more years)

If it truly was the religion of peace, Islam would have addressed the problem years ago.

[dr_pat]

Is the "S" for "Scoop"? Or "Salmon"?

[Velveeta]

Just last Friday:

Saudi cleric 'Aed Al-Qarni told the worshippers, "Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered.
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050104-071553-8226r.htm

Any comments, Yousifa???

[Dashing Dasher]

Welcome to the Melting Pop...
Now, MELT!


That means you in the scarf, too!

[Dashing Dasher]

You move to our nation and then tell us we are pagans and if we don't believe what you believe you will kill us?

It is also against islam to kill Women, Children, Elderly, and men who are not at war.

Like 9/11? What WAR were we in when your brothers decided to kill 3000 of our men, women and children?

Please.... go away.

[TheForceOfOne]

French report card:

1)Keeping Radicals out of your country: F
2)Maintain a strong image: F
3)Maintain Culture: F
4)Prevent giving radicals now in your country a reason to hate you and start bombing and terrorizing you: F
5)Maintain good relationship with countries able to save you ... AGAIN!: FFFFFFF

[SlowBoat407]

I'm still wondering how Islam took over North Africa, southern Spain, Constantinople and other parts of Eastern Europe while heeding the admonition not to invade anyone's land.

And Yousif, don't tell us they were "invited" in. Not at the point of of a sword. Remember: the crusades set out to take back land that had been invaded by Muslims under their first Grand Dragon, Mohammed. Did he break his own rule, or set the example by which the "Religion of Peace" is still acting?

Hmmmm?