LONDON, Oct 14: British minister Jack Straw on Saturday confronted dozens of protesters angered by an appeal he made more than a week ago for Muslim women to remove their veils when meeting him on official business.

“The veil is freedom. The veil is liberation. The veil is choice,” chanted some of the 60 demonstrators, some of them women wearing veils, as Straw arrived at his constituency office in Blackburn, northwestern England.

A larger protest had been planned but was abandoned after police told organizers that they were unable to manage more than 500 demonstrators.

Mr Straw did not speak directly to the protestors but told journalists he was standing by his argument that the veil is “a visible statement of separation and of difference” between Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

“I’m still surprised about the reaction to what I said but I welcome the debate it has provoked,” said Straw, the leader of the House of Commons and a former foreign minister.

“Yesterday four ladies wearing veils visited me and they said ‘You’re absolutely right to ask the question for the veil to be removed’,” he said.

“Some gentlemen who came this morning also told me to ‘stick to your guns’.”

On Friday Straw held his first two meetings at his constituency office since the furor erupted October 5. Both passed without incident.

Meanwhile, a Muslim teaching assistant who has been suspended by her school in northern England denied Saturday that she had refused to take off her veil while in class.

Aishah Azmi, 24, told BBC radio she had only insisted on wearing it in the company of male colleagues but had accepted to remove it while in class with her pupils at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury.

“Specifically, the management assertion was that you have to take it off while in school. It’s to that I answered that I cannot take it off in front of a male colleague,” she told the BBC.

“I have no problem with the children,” she said.

Kirklees Council, the school’s local administrative body, confirmed that Azmi’s case had gone to an employment tribunal and that she would remain suspended until it had reached a verdict.

Stressing that the action had “nothing to do” with religion, the school is reported to have deemed face-to-face to face contact was essential in her role as a bilingual support worker.

Azmi also told BBC radio that her 11-year-old pupils had “very good English” and had “never complained” that they had trouble understanding while she was wearing a veil, which only reveals her eyes.

The Daily Mirror said the school asked her to remove the veil after pupils struggled to understand English lessons because they could not see her lips move.

Azmi is a bilingual support worker at the school where most of the seven-to-11-year-old pupils are of Pakistani or Indian origin. —AFP