MADRID, 8 October 2007 — A Moroccan girl was allowed to return to school in Spain last week after briefly being expelled for wearing a head scarf, but the incident has sparked a national debate over the traditional head cover in the mainly Roman Catholic country.
Two weeks ago a public school in the town of Gerona in the rich northeastern region of Catalonia said Shaima Saidani, 9, could not attend classes wearing the headscarf, or hijab, as it was against its norms.
The girl returned to school Tuesday after Catalonia’s regional government ruled that her right to an education was more important than the institution’s norms, which it said amounted to discrimination.
“I don’t understand it because I am the same as the other girls and I am not hurting anyone,” Shaima told Catalan daily newspaper El Periodico when asked if she understood why she had been prevented from attending school.
Shaima, who says she wants to be a doctor, lived most of her life with her grandmother in Morocco where she received a religious education. Her parents say it is her decision to wear the headscarf.
The Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero reaffirmed its opposition to a ban on the use of headscarves in public schools, calling Shaima’s case “unique.” But the main opposition conservative Popular Party and the regional moderate Catalan nationalists CiU both called for a law regulating the use of the hijab.
“All people who live in Spain have the obligation to respect our juridical order, our laws and our values,” Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy said Thursday.
The communist United Left party went further, urging Spain to adopt a law like the one that come into force in France in 2004 that bans religious symbols in public schools.
Fermin Bouza, a sociology professor at the Complutense University in Madrid, said it was unlikely the Spain, where the Roman Catholic faith still plays an important role in society, would follow the example of France, which has a long secular tradition.
“As long as it is just a veil, which is a small symbol, there will be no problem. You have to remember that 30 years ago in Spain many women wore shawls,” he told AFP.
“I don’t think there is a real reason for tension here where Catholics have the habit of wearing religious medals,” he added.
The issue of veil is a relatively new one for Spain which has seen the number of immigrants living within its borders soar from around half a million in 1996 to 4.48 million at the end of last year, out of a total population of 45.12 million people, according to government figures.
Moroccans make up Spain’s largest foreign community with some 576,000 residents. There are now 531,000 immigrant children attending Spain’s schools, including 90,000 from North Africa.
The Union of Islamic Communities in Spain, which represents the nation’s Muslim community, welcomed the decision to allow Shaima to attend school and predicted the issue would blow over.
“In Spain the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Shaima’s case is unique. I don’t think this controversy will go much further,” the body’s president Riay Tatary Bakry told AFP.
In several other European Union states the use of the hijab in schools has been allowed in the name of civil liberty or schools have been given permission to decide their own policy.
