Belgian city Ghent bans hijab

BRUSSELS - Ghent City, Belgium's third largest, has decided to prohibit civil servants from wearing the hijab.

"It is really not clear who counts as an employee in contact with the public, but we will have to carry it out," a city spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday, November 28.

The city council voted the ban with 26 in favor and 23 other against.

The spokesman said hijab-clad employees might be offered work elsewhere.

Teachers and police officers will be exempted from the hijab ban.

Belgium's second city Antwerp banned the Muslim headscarf earlier this year.

Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one's affiliations.

Hijab has been thrust into the limelight since the 2004 French ban on the Muslim headscarf at public schools and institutions.

Several European countries have since followed the French lead.

Belgian Muslims are estimated at 450,000 -- out of a 10-million-population -- about half of them are of Moroccan origin, while 120,000 are of Turkish origin.

28/11/2007
Source: IslamOnline