Published on 9 September 2006 in Action Alert, Islam and Society. 3 Comments Tags: bulgaria, hijab-ban, muslim_women, religious-discrimination.
IHRC is reporting that Bulgaria has become the latest country to ban the rights of Muslim girls to wear the headscarf (“hijab”) to school. Worse, the country’s Education Minister has declared that Muslim girls who wish to wear the headscarf should attend separate Muslim schools, segregating them from their fellow citizens. Hot on the heels of bans in France, German and Belgium this looks like a worrying trend.
Many Muslim women believe it is a religious obligation to cover their hair in public. Whether right or wrong, this is not the issue. It doesn’t harm or cause any difficulty to anyone else and they should have the right to an education whilst remaining free to practice their religion. Please heed the IHRC’s call to write to your MP, MEP and the Foreign Secretary demanding representations be made to the government of Bulgaria (which is set to accede to the EU next year).
In other news… the Guardian reports that Muslim women face discrimination at the workplace, despite good academic performance. I wouldn’t be surprised if the wearing of headscarves had something to do with it.