Northern UMP deputy member Françoise Hostalier has proposed a similar legislation against headscarves in the National Assembly to the 2004 prohibition of conspicuous religious signs in public schools. Hostalier’s request comes in the wake of students who “provocatively” wore hijabs in the National Assembly in a recent visit. On November 19 in response to protest…
Mouvement Réformateur president, Didier Reynders, announced a desire to ban all religious signs in Belgian public schools. Other political parties have not agreed to the recommendation.
Dutch-language public schools in Belgium will ban the wearing of hijab in classes. The ban will affect 700 schools in the northern region of Flanders, including some in Brussels. School officials argue that the ban was taken to guarantee equal treatment of all pupils within the school grounds. Most schools in Flanders are Catholic and…
Public schools in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district will not offer Islam classes, Telegraaf reports. The classes were requested a year ago by district mayor Ahmed Marouch, who hoped that offering the classes outside the regular school-day would offer parents an alternative to religious education in the mosques. Currently, in-school Islamic classes are offered to children in…
With the beginning of Ramadan, Le Figaro reports that almost 70% of French Muslims will fast, many of them in the concentrated suburbs. Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Mosque of Paris, notes that since the 1990s, young people especially are evident in their Ramadan participation. A 2004 report suggested that fasting has had negative effects…
