c. 2005 Religion News Service

France Reports Only a Dozen Violations of Head Scarf Ban

PARIS (RNS) The number of students defying a controversial year-old ban on religious accessories in public schools has shrunk dramatically to just a dozen infractions, French officials said.

A week after children returned to school, the French Ministry of Education reported that only one Sikh boy and 11 Muslim girls have defied the ban on wearing Muslim head scarves, large Christian crosses, Jewish skullcaps and other “conspicuous” religious accessories in public school.

Those numbers contrast sharply with the 240 infractions registered on the first day of school in 2004 alone, when the ban went into effect.

The ban sparked ire on the part of some religious groups _ notably Muslims _ both at home and abroad. Indeed, it was cited as one reason for the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq last year. Both were freed in December.

Altogether, 639 infractions were registered during the 2004-2005 school year, the Education Ministry reported. Almost all were by head scarf-wearing Muslim girls; four Sikh boys refused to remove their turbans.

Most of those violating the ban came from just a few schools, mostly located in the Paris suburb of Seine St.-Denis and in the eastern French town of Strasbourg, the ministry said. Both areas have large Muslim communities.

Strikingly, 500 of the offenders eventually agreed to remove their offending religious accessory while in school, an Education Ministry official said in a telephone interview.

The agreements often took place after extensive talks among school administrators, teachers, students and their families, the official added.

Another 76 opted for other educational alternatives, usually via distance learning. The other 63 students appear to have dropped out of school.

“We hope the few cases that remain can be dealt with by the end of the week,” the Education Ministry official said, referring to the dozen infractions registered this year. “These few cases means the law was well explained, and that’s a positive sign.”

_ Elizabeth Bryant

Jordanian King Meets Pope to Avert `Clash of Civilizations’

ROME (RNS) King Abdullah II of Jordan met with Pope Benedict XVI on Monday (Sept. 12), expressing a need for frank dialogue between Islam and the West to avoid a “clash of civilizations.”

The pope received Abdullah and his wife, Queen Rania, at Castelgandolfo, the papal summer residence on the hilly outskirts of Rome. Although the contents of the meeting were not disclosed, Abdullah published an open letter Monday in Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest daily newspaper, that described the talks as “a positive and respectful confrontation between our faiths.”

“To defeat the extremists we must beat back their attempt to create a clash of civilizations,” Abdullah said. “This requires honest and continuous dialogue between the West and the Muslim world.”

Parts of Abdullah’s call echoed the blunt language Benedict used at his meeting with Muslims during World Youth Day celebrations in Cologne in August. In those meetings, Benedict urged Muslim leaders to reject “any connection between your faith and terrorism.”

But Abdullah also recalled the conciliatory message that Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, brought to Amman during a papal visit in 2000, in which he referred to Muslims and Christians as “brothers in Abraham.”

“The Message of Amman,” Abdullah wrote, “stresses the teachings of Islam that show humility before God, the dignity of all peoples, compassion and pluralism.”

_ Stacy Meichtry

Editors: Shari’a in name of group is CQ

Ontario Says No to Islamic Tribunals

TORONTO (RNS) After two years of acrimonious debate, the Canadian province of Ontario on Sunday (Sept. 11) said it would not permit the use of private Islamic tribunals to settle family disputes between Muslims.

In an announcement that caught both supporters and opponents of Shariah tribunals off-guard, Premier Dalton McGuinty told Canadian Press that he would nix the use of all religious law in family arbitration.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough,” McGuinty told the national news agency. “There will be no Shariah law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians.”

In May, the neighboring province of Quebec also rejected the use of Shariah tribunals.

McGuinty said religious arbitrations “threaten our common ground” and promised his Liberal government would introduce legislation to ban them in the province “as soon as possible.”

McGuinty set aside the findings of a report issued last December, in which a former Ontario attorney general recommended that Shariah tribunals be permitted, provided certain safeguards were enacted to protect the rights of women and children.

The move to use Shariah in private arbitration surfaced nearly two years ago when mainly conservative Muslims demanded the same rights as Ismaili Muslims, who have used Conciliation and Arbitration Boards (CABs) since 1987, and Jews, who have operated private rabbinic courts in the province for decades.

Ontario’s 1991 Arbitration Act, designed to take pressure off courts, permitted religious groups to operate faith-based legal tribunals provided both parties consent. The rulings have been legally binding since 1992.

The specter of Shariah courts in Ontario set off a firestorm of protest around the world. Women’s groups and progressive Muslims feared the panels would discriminate against women, especially immigrants and members of closed communities, in matters such as divorce, child custody and inheritance.

Supporters of the plan slammed McGuinty as misguided.

“He obviously caved in to political pressure from a minority with a loud voice,” said Mohammed Elmasry, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress. “Not only will it cost him at the polls in the next election, the problem won’t go away. … Arbitration will continue anyway, because it is part of our social fabric.”

Homa Arjomand, an Iranian-born women’s rights activist who led the International Campaign Against Shari’a Court in Ontario, told RNS she was elated at the news. “I was so happy, you wouldn’t believe it. We managed to push back,” she said.

_ Ron Csillag

Palestinians Set Fire to Abandoned Gaza Synagogues

JERUSALEM (RNS) Palestinians set fire early Monday morning (Sept. 12) to several of the two dozen empty synagogues and other religious institutions Israel left behind when it formally exited the Gaza Strip.

Israel TV showed mobs of jubilant Palestinians torching the few buildings Israel did not raze prior to its withdrawal. Some banged hammers against the synagogues, which Israel had emptied of religious objects.

In August, the army flattened the homes of 8,500 Jewish settlers in Gaza and the northern West Bank in accordance with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s controversial Disengagement Plan.

In a turnaround that angered the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli cabinet voted Sunday to preserve the synagogues, despite having voted in favor of demolition in the past. Israel’s Supreme Court, which in the past had similarly approved the synagogues’ destruction, last week urged Sharon to ask the Palestinian Authority to protect them.

The Israeli army had predicted that the synagogues would be desecrated by Palestinians the moment Israel handed the territories to the Palestinian Authority.

Sharon and his cabinet were reportedly motivated to leave the synagogues intact after religious Jews in Israel and around the world flooded the government with emotional appeals not to destroy Jewish places of worship.

In a Sept. 8 letter, the New York-based Orthodox Union said the synagogues should be saved “out of respect for the Jewish religious law which governs these sanctified sites, and out of concern for the precedent that allowing houses of worship to be razed due to threats by a hostile population would set for the world Jewish community.”

“Jews do not destroy synagogues,” Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom had said Sunday. “I hope the Palestinian Authority will come to its senses and not allow barbarism and vandalism to rule over the synagogues.”

The Palestinian Authority said Israel’s decision not to demolish the synagogues put it in an untenable position, given the anger Palestinians feel toward what they view as Israel’s long-standing occupation. The land is slated for Palestinian high-rises.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Monday that Israel “left empty buildings that used to be temples, but they removed all the religious symbols, and they are no longer religious places.”

_ Michele Chabin

Quote of the Day: W. Todd Bassett, Salvation Army National Commander

(RNS) “Certainly, in my history of 41 years as a Salvation Army officer, this is the greatest mobilization of churches in general, but definitely the Christian churches, who in my mind have come to truly realize what Jesus said in Matthew in the 25th chapter: `Inasmuch as you do unto the least of me, you do unto me.”’

_ Commissioner W. Todd Bassett, the Salvation Army’s national commander, who has been heavily involved with relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He was quoted in the New York Times.

KRE/PH END RNS