Teacher and Muslim school clash over headscarf

Submitted by Sophie (Canada), Oct 18, 2005 at 08:36

Teacher and Muslim school clash over headscarf

17 October 2005

AMSTERDAM — A 32-year-old Amsterdam Muslim is challenging the decision by an Islamic school not to employ her because she refuses to wear a headscarf.

Samira Haddad, a teacher of Arabic, has asked the equality commission to rule Islamic College in Amsterdam was wrong to demand she cover her head in order to work there.

The case comes a week after Education Minister Maria van der Hoeven said she is in favour of a ban on wearing the all-covering burka in schools.

Tunisian-born Haddad argued before the commission that she is not accustomed to wearing a headscarf in public. She said she had not encountered any difficulty when she completed an internship at an Islamic

school in Rotterdam.

She never had any problem either when she lived and worked in Islamic countries with her head uncovered.

The headmaster of the Islamic College in Amsterdam said the school's statutes state explicitly that the rules of the Koran and the Sunna must be adhered to.

Non-Muslim teachers can be granted an exemption. "If Miss Haddad was to declare she is not a Muslim then she could, in principle, could come and work with us," a member of the school board said.

The equality commission is to deliver its judgement in eight weeks.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2005]

Subject: Dutch news

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