“This is about the fundamental freedom to choose. Those who chose not to wear the Hijab have joined forces with those who chose to wear it.”
Speech by Abeer Pharaon (Coordinator of Assembly for the Protection of Hijab) at the fringe meeting organised by National Assembly Against Racism at the 2004 Labour Party Conference.
From the Pro-Hijab website.
Letters from the Mayor of London and anti-racism campaigners in the Guardian, 30 September 2004
It was ironic that the French government’s attack on the right of young Muslim women to observe their religion while pursuing their education met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the extreme right-wing Front National. FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen commented at one point that he supported the wearing of the veil … because it meant he didn’t have to look at ugly women: “Le voile musulman: il nous protège des femmes laides” (Le Monde, 22 April 2002). Some on the Left have used the FN’s semi-opposition as an argument in favour of the hijab ban.
However, the following article by FN general secretary Carl Lang, “Vous avez aimé l’immigration? Vous allez adorer l’islamisation” (You liked immigration? You’ll love Islamicisation), from Le Pen’s publication Français D’Abord! (15 December 2003), shows that the main reason the FN failed to throw its weight behind the hijab ban was that the measure failed to deal with what the FN argues is the real problem – the encroaching Islamicisation of French society arising from an influx of Muslim migrants.
It is also worth noting that, as the French press pointed out, the overwhelming majority of FN voters supported the hijab ban. They presumably took a more pragmatic view, reasoning that while the measure fell short of a complete block on Muslim immigration and the extirpation of Islam from France, it was at least a step in the right direction.
The new school term in France is the first under the new law which bans Muslim girls from wearing a Muslim headscarf to school. The vast majority of the young women involved (in general between fourteen and eighteen years old) have agreed under duress to remove the headscarf in school. The hundred or so who have refused have been separated from their fellow-pupils and kept in a separate room (often with separate break-times, no right to use the library and no attention from teachers, despite the legal obligation to provide teaching). Over the next three weeks they will be called to disciplinary committees and expelled from schools. They will join an unspecified number who have been too intimidated to turn up at school since the passage of the law.
John Mullen (LCR Montreuil) on Socialist Unity Network website
Letters defending the French hijab ban.
In the Guardian, 8 September 2004
“The secularist arguments behind the hijab ban in France amount to nothing more than a denial of freedoms of expression and choice. Those who look upon the hijab with disdain will now feel at liberty to abuse those who wear it, given that the state legitimises their feelings. This state oppression will alienate the Muslim population in France. It will result in Muslim women being stigmatised. Secular fundamentalism is as abhorrent as religious extremism.”
Yasmin Ataullah writing in the Guardian, 3 September 2004
A law banning Islamic headscarves and other religious symbols from French state schools came into effect on Thursday, the first day of term.
“The battle-cry of women’s liberation was hijacked this month by Muslim fundamentalists to disguise an agenda that denies choice to women. A conference on the hijab, held at City Hall in London on 12 July and hosted by London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, took place under the title: ‘A woman’s right to choose’.”
Peter Tatchell in the New Statesman, 19 July 2004
Sukaina Jaffer defends the hijab.
The pro-hijab conference held Monday, July 12, at the Greater London Authority, announced an international hijab solidarity day and an action plan to defend the right of Muslim women to take on the headscarf.
Titled the Assembly for the Protection of Hijab, the conference declared September 4, 2004, an International Hijab Solidarity Day because Muslim students across Europe will be back to school by then.
Participants also pledged to rally behind young Muslim girls, who are discriminated against in their western society because of their hijab.
The conference further unveiled a plan of action to build on the recommendations of the one-day conference, calling for educating people on the importance of hijab to Muslim women through seminars and media.