|
Muslim leader says France has right to prohibit
head scarves
Reuters (31.12.2003) / HRWF Int. (05.01.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - The French government and the leader of the Muslim world's most prestigious center of Sunni Islamic learning found common ground on Tuesday on a contentious French proposal that would stop Muslim girls from wearing head scarves in French state schools.
The grand sheik of Al Azhar, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, told reporters that although wearing the head scarf, or hijab, was a religious duty, governments of non-Muslim countries had the right to pass any laws they liked.
He said this applied even on dress codes.
He spoke before talks in Cairo with the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who assured him that France guarantees its Muslim citizens freedom to practice their religion.
President Jacques Chirac of France has called for a law banning Islamic head scarves and other religious symbols in state schools, strengthening France's commitment to secularism.
Many Muslims object to the proposed ban, saying that wearing the head scarf is a religious duty for Muslim women and that the garment should not count as a symbol meant for display.
But Sheik Tantawi, an Egyptian state-appointed official known for his liberal views, said different rules applied to Muslims living in Muslim countries and those living outside.
He said non-Muslim countries were free to impose bans like the one proposed by Mr. Chirac because "that is their right, which I cannot interfere with as a Muslim."
"If a Muslim woman observes the laws of a non-Muslim state," he added, "then from the point of view of Islamic law, she has the status of acting under coercion."
He cited the example of Islamic dietary laws, which allow infractions when Muslims are unable to meet the requirements through no fault of their own.
"Just as I do not allow non-Muslims to interfere in my affairs as a Muslim, at the same time I do not permit myself to interfere in the affairs of non-Muslims," the sheik said.
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the world's largest and most influential Islamist groups, disagrees with that point of view, however, and strongly opposes the French government's plans.
"The secular philosophy on which the French president based his decision to support this proposal, considering the hijab a religious symbol, is not correct," the group said in a statement last week, adding, "The Islamic hijab is a religious duty."
Mr. Sarkozy said French Muslims had the same rights as Catholics, Protestants, Jews and others, and assured his mainly Egyptian audience that the proposed law did not single out Muslims.
The law would limit not just scarves but also skull caps and "large crosses" worn in public institutions.
"You shouldn't see in it a humiliation for anyone," Mr. Sarkozy said. "You shouldn't see in it a lack of respect for your religion. You must understand that secularism is our tradition, our choice."
"I thank the grand imam of Al Azhar for indicating that in a secular and non-Muslim state, it is the duty of everyone to respect the law," he added.
"There are no rights without duties, and if the Muslims of France have the same rights as other believers, they have the same duties," he said.
Back to the Table of Contents
Veiled opposition comes out in force
Washington Post (22.12.2003) / HRWF Int. (29.12.2003) Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net -Thousands of French Muslims -- many of them women wearing head scarves of various styles and colors -- marched through the rain-drenched streets of Paris on Sunday in the first large show of opposition to President Jacques Chirac's call for a law banning veils and other overt religious symbols from public classrooms.
Many of the women carried signs reading "Don't Touch My Veil!" and "I Vote," a reminder to France's political leadership that the country's estimated 5 million to 7 million Muslims could constitute a formidable voting bloc, with regional elections coming in March.
The crowd, which moved from the Place de la Republique to the Bastille, a traditional protest route, chanted and walked behind large banners with other slogans, such as "The Veil Is Our Choice" and "Yes to Secularism, No to Islamophobia." The multiracial crowd was sprinkled with hundreds of French tricolor flags, and the marchers occasionally sang the French anthem, the Marseillaise. "French and Muslim -- and Proud!" one banner read.
"They talk about human rights. They talk about democracy," said a bearded man pushing his 21/2-year-old daughter in a toy red car festooned with a French flag. "So where is the liberty here?"
The march was led by three women who spoke to the crowd from the back of a truck -- one woman was fully veiled; another's hair was covered by a long black cloth that hung over the shoulders of her fashionably tight black leather jacket to her jeans; and the third was bare-headed. The women said the rally was about a woman's right to choose.
Some of the rally leaders said the march was organized by two high school girls from Seine-Saint-Denis, an area near Paris with a large Muslim and immigrant population. Fliers were also circulated at the main mosque in Paris on Friday, calling for Muslims to turn up at the Place de la Republique for the first of several planned mass rallies against the proposed law.
The Place de la Republique, in central Paris, was a particularly symbolic starting point for the rally, which largely targeted Chirac. In May 2002, Chirac celebrated there after obtaining his second presidential term and greeted a huge crowd of well-wishers, many of them Muslims of North African descent, who waved French flags in celebration of Chirac's defeat of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a far-right anti-immigrant politician.
When Chirac announced his call for the new law on Wednesday, official reaction was muted. After Chirac's speech, Dalil Boubakeur, the rector of the Paris Mosque and the head of the government-backed French Council of the Muslim Faith, called on Muslims to remain calm.
But the rally Sunday -- with leaders and leaflets calling for more demonstrations -- indicated that the opposition to the proposed law could be growing. Another rally is planned for next week, and new fliers set Jan. 17 for a mass mobilization.
With Chirac's ruling party enjoying a comfortable majority in Parliament, and even the opposition Socialists backing the ban on religious symbols in schools, the proposed law is expected to be passed as early as February. Chirac has also called for new rules to allow private businesses to ban Muslim head scarves and other religious symbols -- including Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.
Chirac said a ban was needed because France's cherished tradition of secularism -- won a century ago when the separation of church and state was enshrined in the constitution -- was now under threat from rising Islamic militancy. "Fanaticism is gaining ground," Chirac warned in his nationally televised address.
Jewish and Christian leaders have largely supported the law, and many said they believed the law was really directed at Muslim veils, which have become increasingly common in France.
Back to the Table of Contents
International Religious Freedom Report 2003
Human Rights, and Labor (18.12.2003) HRWF Int. (24.12.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.org - The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice; however, some religious groups remained concerned about the possible impact of legislation passed in 2001 that tightens restrictions on religious organizations. A 1905 law on the separation of religion and State prohibits discrimination on the basis of faith.
There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report, and government policy continued to contribute to the generally free practice of religion. The Government has a stated policy of monitoring potentially "dangerous" cult activity through the newly formed Inter-ministerial Monitoring Mission Against Sectarian Abuses.
The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to freedom of religion. After a dramatic increase in the previous reporting period, available evidence indicates that the number of anti-Semitic incidents was lower during the period covered in this report. Government leaders, religious representatives, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) continued to criticize strongly anti-Semitic and racist violence, and the Government maintained increased security for Jewish institutions. The Government continued to take steps to formalize and improve its relations with the country's large Muslim community.
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government in the context of its overall dialog and policy of promoting human rights.
Section I. Religious Demography
The country has a total area of 211,210 square miles, and its population is approximately 60 million.
The Government does not keep statistics on religious affiliation. The vast majority of the population is nominally Roman Catholic. According to one member of the Catholic hierarchy, only 8 percent of the population are practicing Catholics. Muslims constitute the second largest religious group in number, with approximately 4 to 5 million adherents, or approximately 7 to 8 percent of the population. Protestants make up 2 percent of the population, and the Jewish and Buddhist faiths each represent 1 percent. According to various estimates, approximately 6 percent of the country's citizens are unaffiliated with any religion.
The Jewish community numbers between 600,000 and 700,000 persons and is divided among Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox groups. According to press reports, up to 60 percent of the Jewish community celebrates at most only the High Holy Days, such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. One Jewish community leader has reported that the largest number of practicing Jews in the country is Orthodox.
Jehovah's Witnesses claim that 250,000 persons attend their services either regularly or periodically.
Orthodox Christians number between 80,000 and 100,000; the vast majority are associated with the Greek or Russian Orthodox Churches.
Other religions present in the country include evangelicals, Christian Scientists, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Membership in evangelical churches is growing due to increased participation by African and Antillian immigrants. According to the press, there are approximately 31,000 declared members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Examples of other minority religious groups include the Church of Scientology with an estimated 5,000 to 20,000 members, the Raelians, the Association of the Triumphant Vajra, and the Order of the Solar Temple.
Foreign missionaries are present in the country.
Section II. Status of Religious Freedom
Legal/Policy Framework
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion and the Government generally respects this right in practice. The 1905 law on the separation of religion and State, the foundation of existing legislation on religious freedom, prohibits discrimination on the basis of faith.
Religious organizations are not required to register but may do so if they wish to apply for tax-exempt status or to gain official recognition. The Government defines two categories under which religious groups may register: "associations cultuelles" (associations of worship, which are exempt from taxes) and "associations culturelles" (cultural associations, which are not exempt from taxes). Associations in these two categories are subject to certain management and financial-disclosure requirements. An association of worship may organize only religious activities, defined as liturgical services and practices. A cultural association may engage in profit-making activity. Although a cultural association is not exempt from taxes, it may receive government subsidies for its cultural and educational operations, such as schools. Religious groups normally register under both of these categories; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for example, runs strictly religious activities through its association of worship and operates a school under its cultural association.
Religious groups must apply with the local prefecture to be recognized as an association of worship and receive tax-exempt status for their religious activities under the 1905 statute. The prefecture reviews the submitted documentation regarding the association's purpose for existence. To qualify, the group's purpose must be solely the practice of some form of religious ritual. Printing publications, employing a board president, or running a school may disqualify a group from receiving tax-exempt status.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, 109 of 1,138 Protestant associations, 15 of 147 Jewish associations, and 2 of 1,050 Muslim associations have tax-free status. Roughly 100 Catholic associations are tax-exempt; a representative of the Ministry of Interior reports that the number of non-tax-exempt Catholic associations is too numerous to estimate accurately. More than 50 associations of the Jehovah's Witnesses have tax-free status.
According to the 1905 law, associations of worship are not taxed on the donations that they receive. However, the prefecture may decide to review a group's status if the association receives a large donation or legacy that comes to the attention of the tax authorities. If the prefecture determines that the association is not in fact in conformity with the 1905 law, its status may be changed, and it may be required to pay taxes at a rate of 60 percent on present and past donations.
The 2001 About-Picard Law tightens restrictions on associations and provides for the dissolution of groups, including religious groups, under certain conditions. These include: endangering the life or the physical or psychological well-being of a person; placing minors at mortal risk; violation of another person's freedom, dignity, or identity; the illegal practice of medicine or pharmacology; false advertising; and fraud or falsification.
For historical reasons, the Jewish, Lutheran, Reformed (Protestant), and Roman Catholic groups in three departments of Alsace-Lorraine enjoy special legal status in terms of taxation of individuals donating to these religious groups. Adherents of these four religious groups may choose to have a portion of their income tax allocated to their religious organization in a system administered by the central Government.
Central or local governments own and maintain religious buildings constructed before the 1905 law separating religion and State. In Alsace and Moselle, special laws allow the local governments to provide support for the building of religious edifices. The Government partially funded the establishment of the country's oldest Islamic house of worship, the Paris mosque, in 1926.
Foreign missionaries from countries not exempted from visa requirements to enter the country must obtain a 3-month tourist visa before leaving their own country. All missionaries who wish to remain in the country longer than 90 days must obtain visas before entering the country. Upon arrival, missionaries must apply with the local prefecture for a carte de sejour (a document that allows a foreigner to remain in the country for a given period of time) and must provide the prefecture a letter from their sponsoring religious organization.
Public schools are secular. Religious instruction is not given in public schools, but religious facts are taught as part of the history curriculum. Parents may home-school children for religious reasons, but all schooling must conform to the standards established for public schools. Public schools make an effort to supply special meals for students with religious dietary restrictions. The State subsidizes private schools, including those that are affiliated with religious organizations.
Of the country's 10 national holidays, 5 are Christian holidays.
The Government has made efforts to promote interfaith understanding. Strict anti-defamation laws prohibit racially or religiously motivated attacks. The Government has programs to combat racism and anti-Semitism through public awareness campaigns and through encouraging dialog between local officials, police, and citizen groups. Government leaders, along with representatives from the Jewish community, the Paris and Marseille Grand Mosques, the Protestant Federation, and the French Conference of Bishops have publicly condemned racist and anti-Semitic violence. In January a law was passed against crimes of a "racist, anti-Semitic, or xenophobic" nature; the law classifies racist motivations for violent acts as aggravating circumstances and mandates harsher punishment for these crimes.
The Government consults with the major religious communities through various formal mechanisms. The Catholic community is represented by the Council of Bishops. In February 2002, the Government and the Vatican initiated a series of meetings that are expected to focus on administrative and judicial matters. The Government announced plans to establish regular consultations with the Church to discuss judicial and administrative issues of concern.
The Protestant Federation of France, established in 1905, comprises 16 churches and 60 associations. Its primary purpose is to contribute to the cohesion of the Protestant community. It also acts as an interlocutor with the Government.
The Central Consistory of Jews of France, established in 1808, comprises the Jewish "cultuelle" worship associations from the entire country. It acts as a liaison with the Government, trains rabbis, and responds to other needs of the Jewish community. In 1943 Jewish members of the French Resistance formed the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF). The CRIF's stated purpose is to fight anti-Semitism, affirm its solidarity with Israel and commitment to finding a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict, and preserve the memory of the Holocaust.
In April, the Government assisted the Muslim community in forming the national French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) and 25 regional councils to serve as interlocutors with local and national French officials on such civil-religious issues as mosque construction and certification of "halal" butchers.
The Inter-ministerial Monitoring Mission Against Sectarian Abuses (MIVILUDES) is charged with observing and analyzing sect/cult movements that constitute a threat to public order or that violate French law, coordinating the appropriate responses to abuses by cults, informing the public about potential risks, and helping victims to receive aid.
Restrictions on Religious Freedom
Following mass suicides in 1994 by members of the Order of the Solar Temple, successive governments have encouraged public caution towards some minority religious groups that it considers "cults." In 1996 a parliamentary commission studying so-called cults issued a report that identified 173 groups as cults, including Jehovah's Witnesses, the Theological Institute of Nimes (an evangelical Christian Bible college), and the Church of Scientology. The Government has not banned any of the groups on the list; however, members of some of the groups listed have alleged instances of intolerance due to the ensuing publicity.
In 1998 the Government created the "Inter-ministerial Mission in the Fight against Sects/Cults" (MILS) to analyze the "phenomenon of cults." The president of MILS resigned in June 2002 under criticism, and an inter-ministerial working group was formed to determine the future parameters of the Government's monitoring of sects/cults. In November the Government announced the formation of MIVILUDES, the successor to MILS. In announcing the formation of MIVILUDES, the Government acknowledged that its predecessor, MILS, had been criticized for certain actions abroad that could have been perceived as contrary to religious freedom. Anti-cult activists have criticized MIVILUDES for being less aggressive than MILS in its approach to sects/cults.
Some observers remained concerned about the 2001 About-Picard Law. By the end of the reporting period, no cases had been brought under the new law. In November 2002, the Council of Europe passed a resolution inviting the Government to reconsider the About-Picard Law and to clarify certain terms in the law, stating that only the European Court of Human Rights could make a determination as to the law's compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights.
In 1989 the Church of Scientology was charged with fraud and the illegal practice of medicine. In 1998 the investigating judge divulged that many of the Government's files on the case were lost. In August 2002, a Paris judge dismissed the case, citing lack of evidence and the expiration of the statute of limitations. Prosecutors later charged the Church of Scientology with the theft of the files; in May, the case was dismissed for lack of evidence by the Grand Tribunal of Paris. In a separate case in May, a Paris judge held a hearing on allegations that the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center had engaged in organized criminal fraud; no decision had been released at the end of the reporting period. Church of Scientology representatives report that a case filed by a parent whose child attended an "Applied Scholastics"-based school remained ongoing.
In 2001 local authorities in La Rochelle and Lorient refused to rent members of Jehovah's Witnesses public space for meetings, citing as a basis for their decision the inclusion of the group in the 1996 parliamentary report on cults. In February and May 2002, administrative tribunals overturned each city's decision, concluding that the parliamentary report had no legal basis and that the cities could not refuse the group access to public space.
Some observers voiced concerns about the tax authorities' scrutiny of the financial records of some religious groups. In February 2002, the Versailles Court of Appeals upheld a Nanterre court's 2000 decision that the French Association of Jehovah's Witnesses, a cultural association, must pay more than $47.5 million (45.7 million euros) in back taxes. The plaintiffs' appeal of the decision to the Court of Cassation was ongoing at the end of the reporting period.
The wearing of Muslim headscarves and other religious symbols has provoked public discussion. Debate continues over whether denying some Muslim girls the right to wear headscarves in public schools constitutes a violation of the right to religious freedom. Various courts and government bodies have considered the question on a case-by-case basis; however, there has been no definitive national decision on this issue. Government employees are prohibited from wearing religious symbols at work. A civil servant disciplined in May 2002 for wearing a Muslim headscarf filed suit, and a court decision was pending at the end of the reporting period. Some Muslim groups have protested the government policy prohibiting the wearing of the headscarf in national identity photos. In June, the Paris Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's decision that a telemarketing firm must reinstate an employee who had been illegally fired for refusing to remove her headscarf at work. Government leaders have expressed their commitment to secularism and have indicated their intention to form a working group to study the headscarf issue as part of a larger inquiry into the place of religion in society.
There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees.
Forced Religious Conversion
There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.
Section III. Societal Attitudes
The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom; however, there were a number of anti-Semitic incidents during the period covered by this report.
The Council of Christian Churches in France (Conseil des Eglises Chretiennes en France) is composed of three Protestant, three Catholic, and three Orthodox Christian representatives. It serves as a forum for dialog among the major Christian churches. There is also an organized interfaith dialog among the Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and Jewish communities, which discuss and issue statements on various national and international themes.
The annual National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (NCCHR) report on racism and xenophobia, released in March, noted a significant increase in the number of attacks and threats against Jews in 2002. Following a decrease in incidents from 2000 to 2001, anti-Semitic attacks and threats, ranging from graffiti and harassment to cemetery desecration and firebombing, increased dramatically in early 2002, then decreased sharply in May 2002. The NCCHR reported 924 anti-Semitic incidents of violence and threats in 2002, compared to 216 in 2001. The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) hotline received 308 reports of anti-Semitic incidents in 2002, ranging from verbal insults and hate mail to physical attacks on people and property. The CRIF hotline received 215 reports of anti-Semitic incidents from January 1 through June 30, compared to 231 during the same period in 2002. Government leaders, members of the religious community, and NGOs strongly criticized the violence, which some linked to increasing tensions in the Middle East. It appeared that disaffected youths were responsible for many of the incidents, and some arrests were made.
The Government increased security for Jewish institutions. More than 13 mobile units, totaling more than 1,200 police officers, have been assigned to those locales having the largest Jewish communities. Fixed or mobile police are present in the schools, particularly during the hours when children are entering or leaving school buildings. All of these measures were coordinated closely with leaders of the Jewish communities in the country, notably the CRIF. In April 2002, the Marseille prefecture instituted 24-hour patrols at all of the city's Jewish sites.
In addition several incidents occurred against members of the large Arab/Muslim community, including incidents of harassment and vandalism.
Panda Software has claimed that critical statements by government officials in press articles linking the product to Scientology have caused a significant loss of business.
Section IV. U.S. Government Policy
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government in the context of its overall dialog and policy of promoting human rights.
Representatives from the Embassy have met several times with government officials and Members of Parliament. Embassy officers also meet regularly with a variety of private citizens, religious organizations, and NGOs involved in the issue. U.S. Members of Congress and Congressional Commissions, as well as Congressional staff members, also have discussed religious freedom issues with senior government officials.
Back to the Table of Contents
French law on religious symbols wouldn't be a solution, says Episcopate
Reaction to President Chirac's Decision
Zenit.org (18.12.2003)/ HRWF Int. (19.12.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.org - France's Catholic bishops say a law that would ban use of religious symbols in schools will not solve the problems over laicism and separation of church and state.
On Thursday, President Jacques Chirac said he favored a law that would ban the use of "obvious" religious signs in schools. He accepted the majority of recommendations offered last week by the Stasi Commission, which he appointed.
Chirac requested the prohibition of signs that "obviously manifest religious membership" -- the Muslim veil, the Jewish yarmulke, or an "excessively" large cross -- although discreet signs would be accepted, such as a small cross, or Star of David.
The French president rejected the commission's suggestion that two holidays be established -- one Jewish and one Muslim -- in the school calendar. He limited himself to request that justified absences be facilitated for students celebrating Yom Kippur and Aid el Kebir.
Chirac was also in favor of a law that would deny patients in public hospitals the right to refuse being attended to by health care personnel of the opposite sex. Muslim women increasingly have refused to be attended to by male doctors.
"The code of laicism, envisaged by the president of the republic and entrusted to the government, can contribute to remind effectively of the principles and rules that govern us in this matter," the president of the French episcopal conference, Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard, affirmed in a statement today.
"But it will also have to stress that laicism is above all the art of living together, enriched by experience and practice," the archbishop of Bordeaux added. "The state has the responsibility to guarantee the same respect, the same consideration to all the great spiritual families."
"The question of religious dress or signs in public schools and in the administration has focused the debate," the prelate continued. "The president of the republic wants a legislative solution. He outlines the problem. We don't believe, however, that voting on a law will be the miraculous answer to all the difficulties."
"A law will never dispense from the discernment that must be done according to the different situations, also to discern what is 'obvious" and what is 'discreet,'" Archbishop Ricard wrote. "We think that, although it is necessary to recall the laws, it will not suffice. Education, pedagogy and the reaffirmation of a common plan of society seems to us to be of primary importance today."
"If the school must be preserved from every form of violence, pressure [and] disturbance in the educational framework, it must not be, as the president properly stresses, 'a place of uniformity, anonymity, in which signs of religious membership are prohibited,'" the episcopal representative said.
"One must be careful, therefore, that in its formulation, a law on religious signs is not seen as a sign of suspicion of the great majority of people, whose signs of religious membership are not a disturbance of public order," the archbishop said.
Back to the Table of Contents
A ban on religious symbols would violate international protections of freedom of religion
IHF (17.12.2003)/ HRWF Int. (18.12.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) is concerned that a French presidential commission proposal to enact a law banning religious symbols in schools and other public institutions would violate Frances international commitments to protect the freedom of religion.
On 11 December, a "Commission to reflect the application of the principle of laicit," appointed by President Jacques Chirac, published its conclusions on secularism in France. The commission recommended, among others, to draft a law on laicism and to include in it a provision stating "clothing and signs manifesting some religious or political adhesion are forbidden in schools. Forbidden religious clothing and signs are conspicuous signs such as big crosses, veils or skullcaps." President Chirac endorsed the proposals of the commission in his speech of 17 December.
The recommendation of the commission to ban headscarves and other religious symbols from schools triggered prompt opposition from three French Christian Churches -- the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Churches -- as well as from the Muslim and Jewish communities.
Strict separation of the state and religions has been pronounced state policy in France since 1905.
The IHF believes that such a ban would bring the French state in collision with international human rights standards on freedom of religion because wearing religious clothing can be an inherent part of manifestation of ones religion. It is not at the discretion of a state to determine which manifestations are legitimate as long as they do not violate other peoples basic human rights or do not endanger public safety, health, or morals, as defined by international law (see below).
At issue is specifically the question on how to best integrate Muslims into French society and take a firm stand against the alleged increasing militancy among the French Muslim community. The IHF believes, however, that adopting legislation to ban headscarves in public institutions would not be an adequate measure to promote integration and to combat Islamic militancy but might, indeed, contra-productively result in increased alienation and marginalisation of Muslims living in France.
Moreover, while proponents of a headscarf ban insist that wearing a headscarf is simply a fundamentalist symbol of subservience of Muslim women and a sign of oppression they face, for many Muslim women wearing a headscarf is a deeply personal choice and a sign of their religious conviction and has nothing to do with Islamic fundamentalism. A headscarf ban would automatically but mistakenly stigmatize all Muslim women wearing the headscarf as fundamentalists.
In addition, barring girls and women wearing the headscarf from schools, universities and other public institutions could lead to numerous girls and women staying out of schools and universities -- a result contrary to the pronounced aim of the ban, i.e., integration.
Further, while the IHF promotes equality between all religions and world-views, it is concerned at the fact that the intensity the French state now promotes secularism appears to amount to advocacy of one world-view and so seems to contradict the principle of neutrality to which the state proclaims to be committed.
The headscarf issue has been simmering in France since 1989 when two Muslim girls in Paris refused to abide by the order of their school to remove their headscarves. Under a 1989 ruling by the administrative appeal court, the Conseil d'Etat, headscarves and other signs of religious faith are allowed in state schools so long as they are not "obtrusive." Responsibility for interpreting this judgment falls on individual schools and school districts. The debate heated following the September 11 terrorist attacks and the fears for growing militancy among Muslims living in France. France has a Muslim minority of four to five million people.
International Human Rights Standards
All central international human rights instruments provide for the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and the right to its manifestation, observance, and practice. This is guaranteed, for example, by article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). According to this provision, limitations to this right are acceptable only if "they are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others." No derogation from article 18 is allowed, even in time of public emergency. When commenting on this provision, the UN Human Rights Committee has pointed out that the freedom to manifest ones religion or belief as protected by the ICCPR covers a broad scope of activities, including the wearing of distinctive clothing. The UN committee has also emphasized that restrictions to this right must be non-discriminatory in character and that they must relate directly and be proportionate to the aim they were introduced for.
Article 9 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) reiterates the content of article 18 of the ICCPR and lists the same conditions to acceptable limitations, with the addition that all restrictions must be "necessary in a democratic society." According to the European Court of Human Rights, in order to meet this requirement, any restriction must correspond to a "pressing social need" and must be "proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued." The Court has also concluded that the right to freedom of religion as guaranteed by the ECHR "excludes any discretion on the part of the State to determine whether religious beliefs or the means used to express such beliefs are legitimate."
In the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the member states of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed to "respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience." They have subsequently reaffirmed this commitment on repeated occasions. In the 1989 Vienna Concluding Document, the OSCE states agreed to take effective measures to prevent and eliminate discrimination on the grounds of religion and to foster a climate of mutual tolerance and respect between believers of different communities.
------For more information, please contact:
Aaron Rhodes, Executive Director, +43-1-408 8822 or +43-676-635 66 12
Krassimir Kanev, Chair of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, +359-98-52 87 53
Willy Fautr, Chair of Human Rights Without Frontiers, Belgium, +32-67-33 39 95
Henriette Schroeder, Press Officer, +43-1-408 88 22 or +43-676-725 48 29
Back to the Table of Contents
Jehovah's Witness denied custody of her own children: France condemned
French justice was wrong to deny a mother the custody of her children on grounds that she was a Jehovah's Witness, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday.
AFP (16.12.2003)/ HRWF Int. (18.12.2003) - Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - The Court of Strasbourg ruled that there was no evidence of "any influence of her religion on the education of her children" and that France had thereby violated article 8 (respect of family life) and article 14 (ban on discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The ECHR granted Sraphine Palau-Martinez, 40, 10,000 Euros for moral damage and 4,125 Euros for costs and expenses.
On 5 September 1996, the N?mes Magistrates' Court declared the husband to be at fault in their divorce judgment and determined that the children, then aged 7 and 12, would reside with their mother in Spain.
Mrs Palau-Martinez is affiliated to the Jehovah's Witnesses movement, which is regarded as a sect in France. As a result, in 1998, the Court of Appeal granted the father with the children's custody. It considered that it was in the best interest of the children " not to be exposed to the constraints and prohibitions imposed by a religion which is structured as a sect."
The Court of Appeal also judged that the educational rules imposed by the Jehovah's Witnesses movement on their members' children were "essentially open to criticism due to their harshness, their intolerance and the obligation imposed on children to practise proselytism". An appeal brought before the Cassation Court by the mother was turned down.
The ECHR considered in its ruling that the Court had given "considerable importance to the mother's religious orientation, severely criticizing the educational methods which were allegedly imposed by this religion," and had therefore treated the parents differently on the basis of the plaintiff's religion."
If the Court of Appeal "was pursuing a legitimate aim, that is to say, the best interest of the children", it had expressed in its ruling "generalities about Jehovah's Witnesses", added the ECHR, which regretted the lack of social enquiry.
According to the judges of the ECHR, "no concrete evidence demonstrates the influence that the plaintiff's religion might have on the education and daily lives of her children".
Moreover, stressed the ECHR, when the Court of Appeal granted custody of the children to their father in 1998, the children had been living with their mother for nealy three and a half years. It was thus "a violation of the right of the plaintiff to her family life."
Press release issued by the Registrar
CHAMBER JUDGMENT IN THE CASE OF PALAU-MARTINEZ v. France
The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing a judgment[1] in the case of Palau-Martinez v. France (application no. 64927/01).
The Court held
by six votes to one that there had been a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for family life) taken together with Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination);
by six votes to one that it was not necessary to rule on an alleged violation of Article 8 read alone; and
unanimously that no separate issue arose under Article 6 1 (right to a fair trial) or Article 9 (freedom of religion) either taken separately or in conjunction with Article 14.
Under Article 41 of the Convention (just satisfaction), the Court awarded the applicant 10,000 euros (EUR) for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 4,125 for costs and expenses.
(The judgment is available only in French.)
1. Principal facts
The applicant, Seraphine Palau-Martinez, is a French national who was born in 1963 and lives in Alcira (Spain).
The applicant married in 1983 and she and her husband had two children, born in 1984 and 1989. In 1994 the applicant졯s husband left her and moved in with his mistress. Mrs Palau-Martinez petitioned for divorce.
On 5 September 1996 the N?mes tribunal de grande instance granted a divorce, attributing fault to the husband alone. The children would live with their mother in Spain and terms were fixed for access by, and residence with, their father. Mrs Palau-Martinez appealed. On 14 January 1998 the Court of Appeal upheld the divorce decree but ruled that the children should live with their father in France, granting the applicant access and residence rights. It noted that Mrs Palau-Martinez did not deny that she belonged to the Jehovahs Witnesses and observed that the rules they imposed as regards the upbringing of their members children were essentially objectionable on account of their harshness, their intolerance and the obligation for the children to engage in proselytism. The Court of Appeal considered that it was in the childrens interest to escape from the constraints and interdicts imposed by a religion structured as a sect.
An appeal by the applicant on points of law was dismissed in July 2000.
2. Procedure and composition of the Court
The application was lodged on 20 December 2000 and declared admissible on 4 March 2003.
Judgment was given by a Chamber of 7 judges, composed as follows:
Andrs Baka (Hungarian), President,
Jean-Paul Costa (French),
Gaukur J?rundsson (Icelandic),
Karel Jungwiert (Czech),
Volodymyr Butkevych (Ukrainian),
Wilhelmina Thomassen (Netherlands),
Mindia Ugrekhelidze (Georgian), judges,
and also Lawrence Early, Deputy Section Registrar.
3. Summary of the judgment[2]
Complaints
The applicant submitted that the residence order providing that the children should live with their father had interfered in her private and family life within the meaning of Article 8 and was discriminatory for the purposes of Articles 8 and 14 taken together. She further complained of a discriminatory interference with her freedom of religion under Article 9, both taken separately and together with Article 14. In addition, she submitted that she had not had a fair hearing within the meaning of Article 6 1.
Decision of the Court
Article 8 of the Convention taken together with Article 14
The Court noted at the outset that when the Court of Appeal ruled that the children should live with their father they had been living with their mother for nearly three and a half years. Consequently, its judgment had constituted an interference with the applicant졯s right to respect for her family life.
In deciding to change the residence arrangements for the children the Court of Appeal had expressed an opinion on the conditions in which each of the parents was bringing them up. In order to do so it had taken into account information supplied by the parties, and it would appear that it had attached decisive importance to the applicants religion, criticising severely the educational principles it was believed to impose. In doing so it had introduced between the parents a difference in treatment grounded on religion.
The Court reiterated that a difference in treatment is discriminatory unless it has an objective and reasonable justification. In the present case, the difference in treatment thus introduced by the Court of Appeal had pursued a legitimate aim, namely protection of the childrens interests. As to whether it was proportionate to that aim, the Court noted that in its judgment the Court of Appeal had made observations of a general nature about Jehovahs Witnesses. There was no practical, direct evidence that the applicants religion had influenced the childrens upbringing or daily life. Moreover, whereas the applicant had asked the court to commission a social report, a common practice where custody of children was concerned, the Court of Appeal had not thought it necessary to allow her application. Such a report would no doubt have provided some concrete information about the childrens lives with each of their parents and made it possible to ascertain what impact, if any, their mothers practice of her religion had had on them. The Court of Appeal had ruled on the basis of general considerations without establishing a link between the childrens living conditions with their mother and their real interests. Although relevant, that reasoning had not been sufficient.
The Court could accordingly not conclude that there had been a reasonably proportionate relationship between the means employed and the aim pursued.
Judge Thomassen expressed a dissenting opinion which is annexed to the judgment.
***
The Courts judgments are accessible on its Internet site (http://www.echr.coe.int).
Registry of the European Court of Human Rights
F C 67075 Strasbourg Cedex
Press contacts: Roderick Liddell (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 24 92)
Emma Hellyer (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15)
Stphanie Klein (telephone: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54)
Fax: +00 33 (0)3 88 41 27 91
The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1 November 1998 it has sat as a full-time Court composed of an equal number of judges to that of the States party to the Convention. The Court examines the admissibility and merits of applications submitted to it. It sits in Chambers of 7 judges or, in exceptional cases, as a Grand Chamber of 17 judges. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe supervises the execution of the Courts judgments. More detailed information about the Court and its activities can be found on its Internet site.
[1] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17?member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer.
[2] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
Back to the Table of Contents
French head scarf ban concerns Muslims
by Cecile Brisson
AP (15.12.2003)/ HRWF Int. (17.12.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - French Muslim leaders voiced deep concern Monday about a presidential panel's report urging France to ban Islamic head scarves in public schools.
In a letter to French President Jacques Chirac, a council of Muslim leaders said it feared the tone and suggestions of the wide-ranging report would harm the image of France's 5 million-strong Muslim community 8 percent of the population.
"The spirit and the general tone of the report stigmatize this element" of French society, the leaders wrote.
The letter was drawn up by the French Council of the Muslim Faith, set up this spring to serve as a link between the government and the Muslim community, the largest in Western Europe. It is headed by Dalil Boubakeur, who is also rector of the Mosque of Paris.
The group held an extraordinary meeting Monday to debate the report, which they said was generating "serious concern" in the community.
"French Muslims are still paying for Sept. 11," Mohamed Bechari, the council's vice president, told reporters after the meeting.
On Wednesday, the French president is expected to announce whether he supports legislation to ban head scarves and other religious symbols in school.
Chirac is expected to take into account the suggestions of the presidential panel, which spent six months studying how to maintain secularism a constitutionally guaranteed principle that is a core French value while integrating the Muslim community.
France has long debated the head scarf issue, but issue has taken on new urgency in the past two years with dozens of girls expelled from school for refusing to remove their veils.
The panel did not only target head scarves: It also recommended banning Jewish skullcaps and large crucifixes at schools. Small pendants like the Star of David would be permitted.
The report's authors say it does not discriminate against France's Muslim community but seeks to give all religions a more equal footing. However, the Muslim council said Muslims felt singled out.
"The proposed terms ... seem most discriminatory toward Islam," the council wrote.
Muslim leaders also said they worried the report plays down France's guarantee of religious freedom.
Until now, the only policy on head scarves in schools came from the Council of State, France's highest administrative body, which has said they can be banned if they are of an "ostentatious character," a judgment left to each school.
Head scarves are already forbidden for people working in the public sector, but that rule which is not a law is occasionally broken. A Muslim employee of the city of Paris was recently suspended for refusing to take off her scarf or shake men's hands.
Back to the Table of Contents
France divided on Islamic head scarves
by John Leicester
AP (12.12.2003)/ HRWF Int. (17.12.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - After Friday prayers at a Paris mosque, a simple question about the possibility of France outlawing Islamic head scarves in schools provoked a heated protest.
"I urge all our brothers not to take their kids to school!" cried Mohammed, a Muslim of North African origin. The crowd, drawn by his appeals, murmured its approval.
The danger of France's new effort to protect its secular traditions, these angry young men said, is that it will drive Muslims even further away from the rest of the country.
But Bernard Stasi, the head of a presidential panel that recommended the law against head scarves and other religious symbols in schools, including Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, indicated Friday that France has no choice.
The law, Stasi said, will not solve all the country's problems with its large, often poorly integrated immigrant community. But he said France cannot allow Muslims to undermine its core values, which include a strict separation of religion and state, equality between the sexes and freedom for all.
"There are indisputably Muslims or ... groups seeking to test the resistance of the Republic, that bear a grudge against the values of the Republic, that want France to no longer be France," Stasi said on France-Inter radio. "We cannot tolerate that."
His commission's report, released Thursday, painted a grim picture of a nation struggling to accommodate different races, cultures and religions while clinging to the belief that secularism best ensures equality for all.
French public schools should be neutral grounds that protect students from the "violence and furies of society" outside, the report said.
Yet, in school playgrounds, Jewish children are commonly insulted as "dirty Jew" and it "can be dangerous" for them to wear skullcaps on the street or on public transportation, said the 67-page report, the result of six months of study.
One student told the commission that at their high school any Jew who wore a skullcap would be "lynched." Efforts to teach Jewish history are treated with such derision in some schools that instruction about the Holocaust "becomes impossible," the report said.
In some urban ghettos, meanwhile, young Muslim women are forced to cover up and lower their eyes before men; otherwise "they are stigmatized as 'whores,'" the report said. It added that preteen girls are sometimes forced to wear head scarves, and that some fathers or husbands have refused to let male doctors treat their wives or daughters in hospitals.
"Basic rights of women are today scorned on a daily basis in our country. Such a situation is unacceptable," the report said.
President Jacques Chirac, who has previously made clear his opposition to head scarves in schools, is expected to announce Wednesday his stance on a law based on the panel's recommendations.
Any law against head scarves would alienate young Muslims like those who spoke with such passion outside the ramshackle mosque in a poor, multiracial section of Paris' 18th district.
Women "are emeralds, jewels the more they are shielded, the more beautiful they become. They lose their luster if they are outdoors," said Riadh Chabaoui, in his 20s. "In religious life, women must wear veils."
Mohammed, who wouldn't give his full name, said legislating against head scarves would backfire. He said he tells his wife that she's beautiful in her scarf because it is "the flag of all Muslims."
"If you make me choose between breaking the law and breaking the Quran, I'll break the law," he said, referring to the Muslim holy book. "Today, they forbid us from wearing veils. Tomorrow, they'll forbid us from being Muslims."
Non-Muslims also warned that a law could carry dangers.
"Secularism has worked until now," said Monsignor Jean-Michel di Falco, auxiliary bishop of Gap, in southeastern France. "In my opinion, a law risks making this problem even harder to manage."
About 7 percent of France's 60 million people are Muslims; Jews make up 1 percent of the population.
Many Muslims immigrated from France's former North African colonies after World War II, working in factories and living in suburbs now corroded by unemployment and crime.
Stasi acknowledged some "immigrants feel they are not considered to be completely French, feel that they are victims of discrimination."
"In such conditions, it is not surprising that they seek refuge in what is called their community and that they lend a too-often sympathetic ear to those who cast doubt on the values of our Republic," he said.
Not all Muslims oppose banning head scarves. Some say a law would protect young girls from male relatives who force them to cover up.
The veil is for home," said an elderly African begging outside the mosque, who spoke up only after the crowd of younger men had dispersed.
"When you are at school, or in the office, take it off," he said, adding: "If you don't like that, go back to your own country."
Back to the Table of Contents
Chirac stokes Muslim veil debate
by Sophie Louet
Reuters (06.12.2003)/ HRWF Int. (08.12.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - President Jacques Chirac has denounced Muslim headscarves on schoolgirls as offensive and expressed concern about Islamic fundamentalism as momentum builds up in France to bar all religious symbols from public schools.
Speaking on a visit to Tunisia on Friday, Chirac said the strictly secular French state could not let pupils wear what he called "ostentatious signs of religious proselytism" and saw "something aggressive" in the wearing of traditional Muslim veils.
Chirac's comments to pupils at the French lycee in Tunis sharpened the shrill headscarf debate in France, which has seen diffuse popular concerns about Islam, women's rights and Muslim immigration develop into a broad movement to ban the veil.
More than 60 prominent French women, including actresses Isabelle Adjani and Emmanuelle Beart and designer Sonia Rykiel, issued a petition on Friday, urging a ban on "this visible symbol of the submission of women".
"We cannot accept ostentatious signs of religious proselytism, whatever they are and whatever the religion," said Chirac, who is due to receive a special report on enforcing secularism next week in preparation for a possible ban.
"In our public schools, a veil has something aggressive about it which presents a problem of principle, even if only a small minority wears it."
Critics say banning a bit of cloth ignores the root cause of problem, the failure to integrate France's five million Muslims -- mostly of North African origin -- into French society.
Muslim women and girls argue that banning them would infringe on their freedom of religion.
Only a handful of schools have expelled girls for insisting on wearing veils, but polls show a majority of voters favour a ban and parliamentarians are ready to pass one into law.
Referring to Islamic fundamentalists, who many anti-veil activists say pressure girls into covering their heads, Chirac also spoke out against "certain schools of Islam that are not compatible with secularism".
He said all religions had known in their history "times when suddenly there is a deviation or drift that leads to excesses that stoke useless fights and totally oppose the essence of religion, which is love and respect for others".
Chirac stressed he had no dispute with the large majority of French Muslims, many of whom are born in France and have full French citizenship, and admitted that Paris had to do more to ensure they are better integrated into French society.
Political momentum against the veil picked up on Thursday when 30 parliamentarians came out in favour of an even more explicit ban than Chirac hinted at, substituting the word "visible" for the more debatable term "ostentatious".
Some conservative politicians are wary of a total ban on religious symbols since it would also bar neck chains with a Christian cross or Jewish kippa skullcaps.
Back to the Table of Contents
French examine selves with Muslim crisis
By Elaine Ganley
AP (20.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (23.10.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - A century ago, France pulled down the crucifixes hanging in its classrooms in a triumphant climax to its fight to separate the state from the powerful Roman Catholic Church.
Today, battle lines are being drawn over another religious emblem, the Islamic head scarf, which some French see as a threat to their nation's core values and unity.
A bitter debate over whether the head-covering can be worn in public schools, or by civil servants, has festered for nearly 15 years and deepened as France's Muslim sons and daughters come of age.
Some see it as a flag of Islamic militancy, or a sign of submission to men. Others see it as the start of a spiral into unknown territory that could transform France's definition of itself.
With 5 million Muslims, more than 8 percent of the population and increasingly assertive, France is becoming concerned for its hard-won secular underpinnings guaranteed by the constitution.
So deep are these concerns that President Jacques Chirac established a commission in July to study just where secularism stands in a country with the largest Muslim population in Europe.
"It is indeed the question of our national cohesion that is being posed," Chirac said in July. "We cannot remain passive."
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has threatened that if necessary he'll pass a law to impose secularism. "I'm not afraid of Islam," he said last spring.
The issue isn't just the humble head scarf. Both Chirac and the prime minister have voiced disapproval over other Muslim demands that they see as challenging basic tenets of what it is to be French: sexually segregated classrooms, a school calendar that respects Muslim holy days and the refusal to take oral exams with professors of the opposite sex.
But it is the scarf that has captured center stage.
The level of debate racheted up with the expulsion this month of two sisters from the Henry Wallon high school in Aubervilliers, a Paris suburb, for refusing to remove their scarves.
"They were chased out of school like dogs," said Laurent Levy, father of Lila, 18, and Alma, 16. He claimed fear of Islam is "eating away at French society."
Teachers said the school acted on complaints from some Muslim pupils who wanted the ban enforced.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy backed the expulsion, and Francois Hollande, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, agreed, saying: "The law must be applied. We're in a secular country."
Each year, there are about 150 complaints involving head scarves, according to Hanifa Cherifi, the Education Ministry's mediator who intervenes in crisis situations. Unresolved cases lead to expulsion fewer than 50 last year, Cherifi said.
Even among Muslims there is disagreement over whether their religion mandates the scarf that in most cases covers hair, ears and sometimes forehead and shoulders. But hundreds of girls defy the unwritten code forbidding scarves in public schools. While many schools tolerate it, it leads to conflicts, teachers' strikes and court cases in others.
There are large Muslim communities in neighboring countries, from Britain to Belgium. Incidents involving scarves are usually settled quietly on the local level, but in September, Germany's highest court failed to resolve the case of a Muslim woman who was denied a state teaching job unless she doffed her scarf.
The court asked Germany's 16 states to draft laws on scarves in state institutions, and four of them quickly announced they would seek to legislate a ban.
"The head scarf, after all, is not just folklore and a mere symbol (but) a demonstration of an expression of faith," said Hesse state minister for schools, Karin Wolff.
The Council of State, France's highest administrative body, has said scarves should be banned only when they are of an "ostentatious character." It left schools to make that judgment case by case.
The same rules apply to Jewish skullcaps and Catholic crucifixes. But there have been no public incidents triggered by students insisting on wearing skullcaps or "ostentatious" crosses. There are many private Jewish schools in France, where skullcaps can be worn, but only two such Muslim schools.
In July, a Lyon court ruled against a civil servant suspended for refusing to remove her scarf at work. A month earlier, a Paris appeals court upheld a decision in favor of a woman who lost a private sector job after refusing to shed her scarf. Paris City Hall is debating whether to suspend a city social worker who refuses to remove her scarf or shake the hand of men she meets on the job.
"We're in a sort of circle, like a serpent biting its tail," said Sylvie Taleb, principal of the Averroes Lycee, France's first Muslim high school, located in a mosque in the northern city of Lille. Taleb, who teaches French, is a convert from Catholicism and wears a head scarf.
Many women say it's an inseparable part of their identity.
"It's practically my arm, my foot," said Fatima Ezahoui, a 37-year-old mother of four living in Villepinte, north of Paris. "It's part of me."
She dismisses the debate as a "false problem."
"It's like the young girls and their head scarves will destabilize the country," she said. "Is France that fragile?"
France redefined itself in 1905 with a law separating church and state. Crosses were even forbidden on coffins during funeral processions, said Michele Tribalat, a sociologist. Rancor evolved into separate but peaceful coexistence.
The increase in Muslim girls insisting on wearing scarves to school parallels a rise in Muslim fundamentalism over the past 15 years, and a general increase in demands by minorities.
"Today, Islam is seen and shows itself, and that stirs fears," said Franck Fregosi, an expert at the National Center for Scientific Research.
France has for centuries fully assimilated its diverse population, which adopts French values whatever their origins. It is a model directly opposed to the Anglo-Saxon melting pot.
"We're not completely sure of ourselves in this matter because our model is coming apart before our eyes," said Tribalat, the sociologist.
Back to the Table of Contents
France backs school ban on Islamic veils
AP (12.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (17.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - The government and its main opposition joined Saturday in supporting school officials who expelled two sisters for refusing to remove traditional Islamic headscarves in class.
Administrators at the girls' high school, in Aubervilliers outside Paris, said the headscarves were ostentatious symbols of religion.
Lila Levy, 16, and her sister Alma, 18, were expelled Friday for violating regulations aimed at keeping public schools secular.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy backed the decision, saying "these rules must be respected by everyone."
"Our Muslim compatriots know and respect them. It must be done in a way that no one feels humiliated," he said.
Francois Hollande, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, agreed, saying "the law must be applied. We're in a secular country."
The girls' father, Laurent Levy, accused school officials of practicing "educational apartheid." He blamed the decision to expel his daughters on what he claimed is a phobia of Islam "eating away at French society."
Teachers at the Henry Wallon high school said some Muslim pupils had asked that the ban on headscarves be upheld.
Back to the Table of Contents
France considers affirmative action for Muslims
Reuters (08.10.2003)/HRWF Int. (08.10.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - France's five million Muslims do not enjoy the same rights as the country's other citizens and might need positive discrimination efforts to reach an equal footing, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday.
French Muslims, mostly of North African Arab origin, face prejudice at work and a shortage of mosques and other religious services in comparison to other religions, he told an official committee reviewing the law separating church and state.
He remarked that there were almost no Muslims in any senior positions in France. "It's a fact that our compatriots of the Muslim faith do not have the same rights as believers in the other great religions."
Sarkozy, who last year helped Muslim organizations found a national council to represent their interests, broke a French taboo by suggesting that positive discrimination might help integrate Muslims more fully into French life.
"The term 'positive discrimination' doesn't scare me," he said, arguing that favoring Muslims might be the only way to create role models for the community. France has traditionally shunned anything that smacks of ethnic profiling. Paris created the commission to consider how to integrate Europe's largest Islamic minority at a time when young Muslims - sometimes encouraged by fundamentalists - appear to identify more with their faith than their French citizenship.
French President Jacques Chirac is also trying to present his country to the Muslim world as an advocate of multilateralism and a representative of "soft power", casting France as a counterweight to the US in international relations.
Averros Lycee opens its doors
Frances first Muslim secondary school opens
By Frdric Lpinay
AP (02/09/2003)/ HRWF Int. (08.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Eleven students in the second class, six boys and five girls, went back to school Tuesday morning in Lille (North) before the many journalists present for the media-touted opening of the doors of the first private Muslim secondary school in France.
The mediatization? I found that normal, ? explained Mohammed Tassi, 15 years old, one of the students of the second class of Averros Lycee. After all, its my personal choice to study in a Muslim secondary school, he added. It was all the same a little too much, all these journalists, qualified Anas Saghrouni, 15 years old. From the side of the boys, they declared themselves motivated and preoccupied with obtaining the baccalaureate.
On the side of the girls, who were more reserved, the possibility of wearing the headscarf appeared to be the primary motivation for their enrollment in Averros Lycee. I came here by personal choice, even though my parents encouraged me to do so, confided Samira, 16 years old, who did not wish to give her last name. One can be a believer without the headscarf, but as for me, I want to wear it, ? continued another student who did not agree to give her identity. Twelve students were awaited this Tuesday, while last July, the secondary school authorities announced 31 registered. The small number of enrollees, despite all the practicing Muslims, remains no less a success for the initiators of the secondary school, who are members of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), an organization affiliated with the Frres musulmans (Muslim Brothers).
This is a big day for Islam in France and the Muslim community, who made a great way for the success of this project. This secondary school is also a window, a laboratory for UOIF, explained to the Associated Press Amar Lasfar, the superintendent of the mosque of Lille-South and president of the association that manages the secondary school. These first students are writing a page of the history of the Muslim community in their country. A day will come when they will be able to say, I was there, he added.
Installed on the second floor of the mosque Al-Imane (Faith) in Lille-South, a popular neighborhood of Lille, Averros Lycee, named after the Arab-Andalou philosopher of the twelfth century, Abou al-Walid Ibn Rouchd, had only one class for this first school term. Averros Lycee, which allows its students to follow a religious curriculum and Arab culture classes along with traditional subjects, does not organize its functioning according to prayer schedules, with the exception of the Friday noon prayer.
? This secondary school does not have a strictly religious vocation, ? commented Amar Lasfar, who has campaigned for the wearing of the veil since the beginning of the 90s. The superintendent explains that if an establishment is born, this is because of the exclusion of young veiled girls from the benches of public schools. They are here because they can wear the veil without a problem. If one assimilates every young girl who wears the veil or every man who wears the beard of fundamentalism, there is great confusion, he denounced. I preach an Islam respectful of the values of the Republic. Its legitimate that people are scared because they assimilate everyone to everything. The international situation is not favorable, he recognized.
Back to the Table of Contents
The Council of State orders Intelligence Services to inform a Scientologist about their data concerning him
HRWF Int. (29.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - In a decision issued on July 30, 2003 after 11 years of procedure, the Council of State ordered the Renseignements Gnraux (RG/ Intelligence Services) to inform Michel Raoust, President of the French Committee of Scientologists against Discrimination (CFSD), about the personal data concerning him included in the files of the Renseignements Gnraux.
Since 1992, Michel Raoust has been requiring that a copy of his file made up by the RG be handed over to him in application of the law of 1978 regarding computer data, files and liberties. Until now, the RG had taken refuge behind the notion of ?public security? to deny him this access.
The Council of State rejected this argument : ? This only motive of a general character, in the absence of any element in the file enabling to estimate that the data included in the file of Renseignements Gnraux regarding Mr Raoust or the Church of Scientology could not be given without undermining the public security or the safety of the State, is not of a nature liable to justify the decision to refuse communication of them ; consequently, Mr Raoust is founded to require the nullification of the decision denying him communication of the (personal) data regarding him included in the files of Renseignements Gnraux. ?
This decision introduces a new jurisprudence because, for the first time, the supreme administrative jurisdiction asks the CNIL and the Ministry of the Interior to justify their refusal to communicate for ?undermining public security? with objective elements opposable to the person requiring access.
? This is a victory for human rights and freedom of belief in France, a victory against arbitrary and the spirit of inquisition ?, said Jean-Louis Gagnot , Secretary of CFSD. ? We are delighted that the Council of State emphasizes the gross error of judgment of the Renseignements Gnraux regarding our president. Consequently, we ask for a procedure of nullification of the parliamentary list of 172 cults, as it was fully based on RG works. ?
? The RG should focus their action on corruption and terrorism and leave the Church questions to religious. Otherwise, their own existence might be questioned in the eyes of the Constitution.?, he added.
Twenty-four other Scientologists have started a similar procedure against the Renseignements Gnraux.
Back to the Table of Contents
ADFI North and UNADFT summoned before the Tribunal
of High Instance of Paris and threatened with judicial dissolution
Thierry Becourt Press Release (20.07.2003)/ HRWF Int. (24.07.2003) Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Last Thursday, Thierry Becourt and two other citizens who were victims of the intrigues of ADFI North and UNADFI notified them by bailiff that proceedings against them were instituted before the Tribunal of High Instance of Paris.
The plaintiffs claim in their writ of summons that in view of the effective activities carried out by the two associations for many years, their objective is illicit and they have to proceed with judicial dissolution.
The writ of summons is based on the fact that the two associations claim to denounce only illegal practices, while in fact they conduct a struggle against spiritual and religious movements aimed at normalising beliefs and ideologies, which they consider deviations.
Those two associations do not enjoy any popular support. 95% of their funds come from public authorities. The writ of summons states that they are in fact the armed hand of the state and are involved in a manifestly illegal combat with regard to the French Constitution and the international conventions France has ratified.
For example, ADFI North did not hesitate to interfere in the divorce proceedings of Thierry Becourt in order to try to deprive him of the custody of his children by taking out on demand of his wife a hallucinating document, which denounces the particular world view to which Thierry Becourt adheres and the ideology disseminated by the association of Mr Becourt which runs counter to the commonly accepted values and views.
This propaganda, due to the principle of precaution pushed forward by courts, contributed to the withdrawal of his children whom he has not seen for five years.
The UNADFI does not hesitate to mock unconventional beliefs in its bulletin Bulles and has on several occasions organised unfounded public denouncement campaigns, which have invaded the privacy of the other two plaintiffs. The UNADFI has not hesitated to continue the distribution of photocopies of press reports four years after their authors were condemned for defamation or to spread grave accusations without any proof.
On the occasion of the proceedings, the plaintiffs plan to ask several questions:
- - Is it normal for these associations to collaborate openly with the intelligence services, a form of collaboration they consider essential to their activities in an official letter?
- - Is it normal for these associations to benefit from a massive and increasing financial contribution from public funds, while the membership fees (hardly 5% of their budget) are steadily decreasing?
- - Is it normal for these associations to spread rumours and to organise denouncement campaigns, which deeply destabilize whole families and which in many cases have led to dramatic consequences, while claiming to defend the family and the individual?
- - Is it normal for the Ministry of National Education to use those associations to teach anti-sect prevention to our children, while they are largely discredited and involved in several judicial proceedings? This prevention is based on their own rumours and those of the intelligence services.
These proceedings have just been initiated with the purpose of abolishing in France this archaic remnant of former inquisitorial tribunals in the name of the legitimate right of each citizen to adhere to beliefs and movements of his/her choice.
For more information and the full text of the writ of summons can be obtained on request from Thierry Becourt at 03 20 81 28 27 or at 06 84 52 76 29.
Back to the Table of Contents
French and Jewish extremists unite on Net against Arabs
by John Lichfield
The Independent (17.07.2003)/ HRWF Int. (24.07.2003) Email info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Extreme-right and neo-Nazi groups in France have formed an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim alliance on the internet with extremist Jewish groups, a report published yesterday said.
Since the French far right is known for its visceral anti-Semitism, the alliance has puzzled and disturbed anti-racism campaigners and mainstream Jewish organisations.
A series of linked websites, calling for violent "resistance" against the "Islamic Republic of France" and its leader, "President Ben Shirak" (Jacques Chirac), operated through a single host in the United States from 1999 until March this year, according to the report.
Responsibility for the sites, which called for attacks on mosques to provoke a civil war between Arabs on one side and white French and Jews on the other, has been traced to members of extreme right-wing groups in France, but also to extremist Jewish organisations.
All the sites disappeared mysteriously from the internet on a single day in March. Investigators for a French anti-racism organisation believe that the temporary black-out was caused by a quarrel between the unlikely new allies over the American-led invasion of Iraq.
Far-right groups allied to Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front stridently opposed the war; extremist Jewish groups in France wholeheartedly supported it.
Despite this spat, new internet sites have sprung up in recent weeks, spouting the same vicious anti-Arab rhetoric, and have been traced once again to an informal coalition of far-right and extremist Jewish groups and individuals in France.
One of the alleged creators of these sites, an official of the National Front spin-off group the Mouvement National Rpublicain (MNR), was recently arrested by French police and may be charged with "inciting ethnic and religious hatred".
The Mouvement contre le Racisme et Pour l'Amiti entre les Peuples (Mrap), which produced yesterday's 170-page report, said the French government was not doing enough to combat racist propaganda on the internet.
It also denounced an extremist Islamic site in France that has been generating anti-Semitic propaganda for years without any action by the French authorities.
The main umbrella body for Jewish groups in France - the Conseil Reprsentatif des Institutions Juives de France (Crif) - yesterday condemned the racist propaganda placed on the internet by extremist groups.
Haim Musicant, the director of Crif, said he was aware of the existence of sites "which claim to be Jewish" that were calling for violence against people of Arab origin in France. "They are individuals who represent no reputable organisation," he said.
"They could be extremist [Jews] whom we condemn entirely, but they could also be provocateurs."
The sites, with internet links and common themes and use of language, originally found a home on a US host called liberty-web. net. They argued that whites and Jews in France were threatened with extinction by an Arab and Muslim "invasion", which was being assisted by racial traitors such as M. Chirac, always called Ben Shirak.
"It has become necessary to employ unusual methods to get rid of Ben Shirak and his government and to try to restore the honour, grandeur and security of France," one of the sites said in May last year. Two months later, a minor official in a group linked to the MNR tried to assassinate M. Chirac during the 14 July military parade on the Champs Elyses in Paris.
Another site, showing M. Chirac shaking hands with a man in an Arab head-dress, said: "2007: Chirac hands over power to his successor."
Back to the Table of Contents
France says violent, `fanatical sect' had to be stopped
One US lawmaker said that the arrest of the group's leader, who was moving her base from Iraq when arrested, is a boost to Iran's theocracy
The New York Times News Service (01.07.2003)/ HRWF Int. (03.07.2003) - Email: info@hrwf.net - Website http://www.hrwf.net - To true believers, the ones who are waging a hunger strike to protest her detention in a French jail, Maryam Rajavi is the smiling face of Iran's future, the woman destined to overthrow its clerical leaders and become president of a free and democratic country.
To detractors, she is a dangerous cult figure who, with her husband, Massoud Rajavi, has led a terrorist movement that sold out to Iran's enemy, Iraq, and accepted former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's sponsorship. They say the Rajavis brainwash followers, forcing them to abandon spouses and children, and imprison or kill those who resist.
What is not in dispute is that the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People's Mujahedeen, the Iraq-based Iranian opposition group the Rajavis lead, has been designated a terrorist organization by both the US State Department and the 15-country EU. Now, in an unintended consequence of the US-led war against Iraq, the US and France are struggling to figure out just who these people are and what to do with them.
The collapse of Saddam's government has left the fate of thousands of Iraq-based Mujahedeen followers, including heavily armed troops, in US hands. A major French crackdown nearly two weeks ago against the group's local headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise and sites outside of Paris was aimed at preventing the organization from moving the center of its global operations from Iraq to France.
"We could no longer tolerate an organization that was expanding its terrorist operations and we feared that it could start organizing and planning attacks from French soil," said Pierre de Bousquet, the director of the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, France's counterintelligence service, in an interview.
Since last fall, he said, French intelligence noticed the arrival of an increasing number of Mujahedeen members and, after the US invasion of Iraq, of many of its soldiers. The group had rented a former paint factory in the town of Saint Ouen l'Aumone, which he said it was transforming into a communications center with a television studio and satellite dishes. French intelligence officials reported that the Mujahedeen planned to attack embassies and other Iranian interests in Europe and assassinate 25 former Mujahedeen members.
"This is by no means a political movement, a democratic movement," de Bousquet said. "It was not preparing the restoration of democracy in Iran. They are complete fanatics, a fanatical sect with a total absence of democracy, and a cult of personality."
What makes the Mujahedeen difficult to decipher is that it has at least two aspects. One operates a highly regimented operation from inside Iraq with its own army, dress code, calendar, rituals, printing presses, military training camps, clinics and what it calls "re-education camps."
The other has offices in capitals around the world under the group's political arm, the National Council of Resistance, staffed by sophisticated, multilingual representatives in suits and ties. In a contradiction in US policy, the State Department lists the group's political arm as part of the Mujahedeen's terrorist network, but it is allowed to function openly in the US and is even registered with the Justice Department as a lobbying organization.
Since the arrest in France last week of more than 150 Mujahedeen members, most of whom have since been released, the Auvers-Sur-Oise headquarters has become a place of pilgrimage and public relations. In the town where Vincent van Gogh lived and is buried, hundreds of Mujahedeen followers, including dozens of men on hunger strike, have camped out. French anti-riot police patrol the area with walkie-talkies. Huge banners bearing Rajavi's portrait have been hung.
Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of the late French president Francois Mitterrand, has paid a visit in a show of support. The mayor of Auvers-Sur-Oise has lent them a soccer field to use as a campsite.
Shahin Gobadi, a Mujahedeen spokesman based in Washington, distributed letters from around the world criticizing France's decision to detain Rajavi and 10 of her followers on suspicion of terrorism. Several were signed by US lawmakers.
"The arrests serve the interests of the terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran," said a June 19 letter from US Representative William Lacy Clay, calling for the immediate release of Rajavi. US Representative Edolphus Towns, sent an almost identically worded letter the same day.
But for those who have studied the organization -- and to some former members -- it is far from being a political movement with popular support inside Iran. It has gone through several ideological shifts since its founding in opposition to the Iranian monarchy in the 1960s -- moving from anti-imperialism to a blend of Islam and Marxism to egalitarian Socialism to a vague philosophy that talks of democracy, freedom and equal rights for women.
Back to the Table of Contents
France may outlaw Muslim veils in schools
Reuters (25.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (25.06.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - France may pass a new law to ban Muslim veils and other religious symbols in public schools and buildings if people do not respect the republic's secular policies, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin says.
Stepping into a growing debate about the veils, Raffarin said on Tuesday he hoped that France's secular tradition -- which demands a strict separation between the state and all religions -- was strong enough to win respect by all residents.
"But if there is not a consensus, especially on symbols and behaviour linked to religion in public facilities, I will not hesitate to enforce respect for secularism by law," he told a meeting of French and foreign Freemasons.
France stemmed a wave of veil-wearing in schools about a decade ago but has seen the practice revive in recent years as violence in the Middle East has grown and more French Muslims identified with Islamic causes.
Several conservative legislators have called for an "anti-veil law" but others hesitate because of the ramifications it could have, such as banning yarmulkes for Jewish boys or necklaces with a cross for Christian girls.
French media have been filled in recent days with reports about teenage Muslim girls wearing veils to school and municipal swimming pools setting aside special women's swimming hours at the request of Muslim groups.
In a well-known school for foreign languages, one newspaper report said, a Muslim woman student refused to answer a teacher because she believed pious Islamic women should hide their voices from strange men as they did their faces.
Muslims complain about discrimination, saying that other religious symbols are quietly allowed in French schools and public buildings while Islamic symbols are not.
About five million of France's 60 million population are Muslims, with roughly half of them immigrants and half born in France. They made up Europe's largest Muslim community and the second religion in France after Roman Catholicism.
No exact statistics exist because France's secular tradition means the national census forms cannot ask about religion.
Back to the Table of Contents
French government sets up an institute to study religious factor
Proposed by former Marxist who discovered the importance of religion
Zenit.org (23.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (25.06.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The European Institute of the Sciences of Religions, created by the French government's Ministry of Education, has been inaugurated to promote the teaching of the religious dimension in the country's lay and republican schools.
The new institute, presided over by Rgis Debray and directed by Claude Langlois, is under the cole Pratique des Hautes tudes. The institute is to be the source of formation and resources at the service of public education, as well as a center of applied research on the teaching of the religious factor in Europe.
The institute came into being officially last week, 18 months after the French Ministry of Education asked Debray to prepare a report on the role that the teaching of the religious factor should have in a secular and republican context.
Born in Paris in 1941, Debray once manned the ranks of militant revolutionary Marxism. In 1967, when he was in Bolivia with Che Guevara, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Released three years later thanks to international pressure, he was, among other things, adviser to French President Fran?ois Mitterrand on Latin America.
A disillusioned Debray recalls how much he had hoped that Marxism would construct a just society -- and he is alarmed by the absence of objective values in today's society.
At the end of his report, Debray proposed "the reintroduction of the teaching of the religious factor" in the schools, as an indispensable element of formation, "insofar as it is the prolongation of all fundamental teachings."
Debray thus summarized his report addressed to the Ministry of Education: "It is not possible to understand great Renaissance painting, if the story of Joseph, Mary and her child, Jesus, is not known. Someone who visits a museum will not know what he is seeing when he looks at St. Sebastian, and he might ask, Is this a cowboy riddled with Indian arrows? To understand a Bach Magnificat, or a Te Deum, one must know what it is and what the Mass is about."
Rather than proposing a new course on religion in the French school system, the Debray report suggested that teachers be given formation in the disciplines that touch upon the religious factor, especially those who teach history and literature.
Added Claude Langlois, the new institute's director: "But we can also address the scientific disciplines, in the context of relations between science and religion."
The Debray report makes a distinction between "teaching of the religious and the teaching of religion." In his opinion, the French public school "can and must be enriched by teaching the religious factor, with teachers who are especially formed, but discarding religious indoctrination and the catechisms of each confessions."
Last year, Debray published a voluminous book "Dieu, un itinraire" (God, an Itinerary), in which he focuses on the capital importance of religions in the moral and spiritual history of mankind.
Last November, the European Institute of the Sciences of Religions organized a colloquium on the teaching of the religious factor for directors of national education. An international conference is planned Oct. 2-3 on "Politics and Religion in Asia: The Present in the Light of History."
Back to the Table of Contents
France tied up in knots over Islamic headscarf
by Mark John
Reuters (22.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (26.05.2003) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email: info@hrwf.net - As France seeks to nurture a moderate Islam able to live happily within its secular state, it is getting tied up in knots over the Muslim headscarf.
Calls are growing for its prohibition in school, where young French minds are trained to respect the 1905 law separating the state and religion. A final decision could come next month.
But some fear any such move could backfire, exacerbating tensions between the country's 4 million to 5 million Muslims and other groups.
"This is the wrong battle. Legislation could be dangerous," said Bernard Kanovitch, the official at France's main Jewish organization, CRIF, in charge of with relations with Muslims.
Critics say the headscarf is an affront to France's secular ideal and to sexual equality. Teachers want a law banning the headscarf in school outright, and conservative Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has said legislation is possible.
Alarmed by signs of a rise in fundamentalism in the country, France extended a hand to moderate Muslims this month by overseeing the launch of the faith's first national representational body. It is also talking about offering state grants for new mosques.
Other religions -- including the predominant Catholic faith and Judaism -- have in the past recognized the primacy of state, either by surrendering church property to it or bowing to secular law over religious commands.
Proponents of a ban say there is no reason why Islam should not make compromises too. And they say now is the time to act.
Muslims first, French second
Resentment among Muslims about the poor hand generally dealt to them by French society is pushing more of them to view themselves as Muslims first and French second.
The plight of the Palestinians in the Middle East, and the perception that Islam is in the dock for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States is leading to a sense of alienation from the West.
Police figures point to a rise in anti-Semitic attacks, with Muslim youths the prime suspects. Tension is often palpable in the schools of culturally mixed areas. One teacher said he was showered with paper pellets for teaching about the Holocaust.
With its Muslim and 650,000-strong Jewish populations both the largest of their kind in Europe, the last thing France wants is a society dividing along religious lines. But teachers say this is what is happening in some schoolyards.
At present, teachers must grapple with a 1989 constitutional ruling empowering schools to ban any religious symbol -- headscarf, Jewish skullcap or Christian cross -- worn as an "act of pressure, provocation, proselytism or propaganda."
"Teachers feel totally overloaded. For them it means constant negotiation," said Hanifa Cherifi, the Education Ministry official charged with mediating disputes between schools and pupils over the headscarf.
Already, passions are running high.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was booed by a Muslim gathering in April for insisting that women should remove headscarves for identity card photographs.
The traditionalist Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF) responded by declaring that under Islam the headscarf for women was "an uncontested obligation, a truth."
Opposition Socialists, who shied away from legislating after a similar row in 1988, insist on more time for debate. For now, President Jacques Chirac is also keeping his council.
Indeed, arguments in favor of doing nothing are tempting.
Far right looms
As Education Minister Luc Ferry has acknowledged, any ban could run up against European Union treaties permitting religious symbols in school.
Moreover Cherifi, herself a non-scarf-wearing Muslim, said her agency was having to deal with fewer disputes than before -- some 150 a year now compared to 400 in the mid-1990s.
"Despite more headscarves on the street, it is less prominent in schools thanks to teachers' efforts," she noted.
Kanovitch at the CRIF said Jews saw the headscarf as less of an issue than anti-Semitism and said it was up to Muslim leaders to resolve the issue.
Raffarin has said he would prefer not to pass a law unless necessary, fearing a "futile conflict." But doing nothing may not be a viable option.
Inaction on headscarves could leave the door open for far-right campaigner Jean-Marie Le Pen to exploit the issue in regional and European parliament elections next year. Pressure to act is coming from the top of Chirac's ruling UMP party.
"The legislature must assume its responsibilities," urged its chairman Alain Juppe.
Back to the Table of Contents
France calls for 'compatible' Islam
by Paul Michaud
Dawn (02.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (05.05.2003) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email: info@hrwf.net - In an important declaration on the future of Islam in France, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has declared not only his unflinching support for French Muslims , he's also said that the French will just have to accept Islam in all of its various manifestations.
"If you decide that Islam is incompatible in France with the values of our Republic," noted Mr Sarkozy, "then what do you do with the five million Muslims who reside in France? Do you expel them, do you force them to convert themselves, do you ask them not to practice their religion?"
Mr Sarkozy, reacting to recent criticism of the CFCM (Conseil francais du culte musulman), the single representative organism for French Muslims, said that "you just can't accept a situation where you have, on one side, those who have the right to live their faith, and, on the other, those who are forbidden to do so."
"Let's not forget that Islam is the country's second most important religion, and that the time had come for it to have the right to dispose of its own representative organism capable not only of representing its interests before the French government, but also of engaging itself in a dialogue with the country's other religions."
Mr Sarkozy noted that members of other Muslim organization "had just as much right" to belong to the CFCM, and exist in France, as did other religions.
Back to the Table of Contents
French minister insists no veils in ID photos
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy d | 