Canada’s largest Muslim organisation is outraged over a bill introduced by the Quebec government that would ban headscarves for school support staff and students.
“In Quebec, we made the decision that state and the religion are separate,” said Education Minister Bernard Drainville, CBC News reported. “And today, we say the public schools are separate from religion.”
But the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), who are challenging in the Supreme Court the original bill that forbids religious symbols being worn by teachers, say the new bill is another infringement on their rights and unfairly targets hijab-wearing Muslims.
“This renewed attack on the fundamental rights of our community is just one of several recent actions taken by this historically unpopular government to bolster their poll numbers by attacking the rights of Muslim Canadians,” the NCCM said in a social media post.
They can wear the hijab if they go to private schools and universities. If they want to go to public educational institutions, they have to comply. Germany was very liberal to people who are actively practising one religion. Then they began to make problems in many ways. For example, there was a room for religious people to pray in the university. The result was that the people fighted each other because they had different religions. The women were isolated from the men. Now there is not a room anymore. This was one of the more harmless problems.
I’m an atheist and completely non-religious - but someone wearing a hijab, a turban or a yamulke in observance of their religious beliefs is frankly none of my business, and had zero effect on me. I believe in a secular public school system, but that doesn’t mean oppressing someone’s religious freedom.