September 25, 2003	Thursday	Rajab 27, 1424

BERLIN, Sept 24: The debate raging across Europe over the right of Muslim women and girls to wear headscarves in the classroom burst into life again on Wednesday with a court ruling and a decision by a school board.

In Berlin, Germany’s highest court ruled that a regional state was wrong in banning a Muslim teacher from wearing a headscarf in the classroom, but said individual states may pass new laws to outlaw religious dress in public schools.

And in France, two sisters were banned from a suburban Paris school for refusing to uncover parts of their face.

The Central Council of Muslims blasted the Berlin court’s decision as opening the door for states to issue blanket bans on teachers wearing headscarves in schools.

“That would be a severe action against Muslims,” council chairman Nadim Elias told Deutschlandfunk radio, adding that women wearing headscarves had become part of “everyday life” in Germany.

In a long-awaited decision on freedom of expression and religious neutrality in the classroom, the constitutional court overturned a lower court’s ruling that the conservative southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg was justified in refusing to hire a Muslim teacher who insisted on wearing a headscarf.

The teacher, Fereshta Ludin, an Afghan who was naturalized as a German citizen in 1995, had fought her way to the highest tribunal to win the right to work in public schools with her head covered.

Baden-Wuerttemberg had argued that a teacher with a headscarf violated “the strict neutrality of public schools in religious issues” and could have undue influence on impressionable young children.

But the court based in the western city of Karlsruhe ruled five-to-three that states must find “arrangements acceptable for everyone” in striking a balance between religious freedom and neutrality in schools.

“The state legislatures are now free to provide the legal basis (for a headscarf ban) that has been missing until now,” the court said.

It said states were within their rights to determine that headscarves and other religious symbols should be outlawed in the classroom.

But it said the issue was too contentious to be decided on an ad hoc basis and required a legal framework.

The court said it was possible, although not scientifically proven, that children could be influenced by the religious dress of their teachers, provoking conflicts with parents.

Fereshta Ludin, 31, today works at an Islamic school in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, which has a large Turkish population. She welcomed the ruling as an opportunity for a “fair and prejudice-free debate”.

“I often felt discriminated against in the past. Many of those accusations have now been lifted,” she said.

Ms Ludin said that if she were unable to return to Baden-Wuerttemberg to teach if the state passed new legislation, she would be able to seek work in a public school in another state.

Marieluise Beck, the federal government’s point woman on immigration, refugees and integration, had been a vocal supporter of Fereshta Ludin’s case.

“This is a debate that now belongs in the parliamentary and political sphere,” she said in a statement.

She interpreted the ruling as setting a clear legal foundation in support of religious freedom and parents’ singular role in raising their children while respecting religious neutrality in schools.

More than three million Muslims live in Germany.

PARIS SCHOOL: Lila and Alma Levy, 18- and 16-year old daughters of a Jewish man and a Muslim woman, were ordered to stay away from the Henri Wallon lycee in the northern suburb of Aubervilliers pending a decision by the school’s disciplinary board expected in 10 days.

According to a note from the education authority, the girls were wearing clothes “of an ostentatious character” that were also unsuitable for sports lessons. And it said the sisters caused a “public nuisance” by taking part in a demonstration in front of the school in favour of headscarves.

The girls’ father Laurent Levy, who is a lawyer, reacted with fury to their exclusion from school and threatened legal action unless they are quickly readmitted.

“Three quarters of the children at their school are from immigrant families. Perhaps a half are of Muslim origin. Saying to them that just because they practice the religion of their ancestors they are doing something ugly is a sure-fire way of causing an explosion,” Mr Levy said at a press conference.

EXPULSION: In Canada, a Muslim teenager was expelled from a private school in Montreal for wearing the headscarf.

Irene Waseem, 16, was expelled from the French-speaking Charlemagne school she had attended since the start of her secondary education, her family told a newspaper.

“It’s like saying to people who so often feel they are excluded from society that they actually are,” he said.—AFP