Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Seven years old with a full veil

The education council of the regional government of Catalonia has forced a state school in Girona to admit [Shaima, a seven-year-old Moroccan girl] to participate in lessons. The girl, who refused to remove her veil, had been missing school for over a week. The mother, Noama, affirms that the decision to wear the hidjab, the scarf which leaves the face uncovered, is not due to family pressures. “Shaima did everything alone,” she says in one of many interviews, “the child has grown up until last year in Morocco with the paternal grandmother, from whom she took her religious habits.” […]

But the public opinion does not seem to agree: according to the on-line survey launched by El Pais on the case of little Shaima, 76% of the Spanish believe that the use of religious symbols in class should be forbidden, while 24% are in favour.


(From Here, hat tip to Brussels Journal.)

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