BAGHDAD, Dec 27: Iraq’s Shia leaders called on Friday for a boycott of French products in protest at France’s move to ban headscarves and other religious insignia from schools.

“I suggest that a fatwa (religious edict) be issued by (Shia religious scholars) in Najaf and Al Azhar ordering a boycott of French products,” firebrand Moqtada al Sadr said.

“If we cannot reach such a decision, we should at least threaten to do it,” he told worshippers during his Friday sermon in Kufa, near Najaf.

Silence would encourage other countries, such as Germany, to follow in France’s footsteps, Moqtada Sadr warned.

A similar call was made by another Shia leader in Baghdad.

“We condemn the French government’s decision prohibiting the Islamic veil and we demand the liberty that France says it embodies,” Sayyed Amer al Husseini told some 10,000 worshippers in the Sadr City district.

“We encourage a boycott of French products and call on Muslims in France to continue wearing the veil,” he said in a sermon at the main weekly Muslim prayers.

In the northern city of Mosul, hundreds of women marched on Friday evening to protest the French move.

“Mosul’s women denounce the French decision to ban the veil,” “This decision violates freedom,” read some of the banners raised by the protesters.

After months of heated debate, a committee of French experts last week recommended banning from state schools “conspicuous” religious insignia — including the hijab (Islamic headscarf), the Jewish kippa or skullcap and large crucifixes.

French President Jacques Chirac has come out in favor of the ban, which he wants written into law by the start of the next academic year. —AFP