In a new move against a woman's right to wear the hijab, the Islamic head dress, a Dutch member of parliament has called for a ban of the hijab from public places in the country. Jeanine Hennis, a member of the liberal VVD party said in a an interview with De Pers newspaper that the country should move to start a debate on banning the dress. “I would very much like to have that debate about when you can wear a headscarf,” Hennis said on Tuesday. The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) is a liberal conservative party that shares a coalition government with the Christian Democrats. The VVD has 6 ministers in the current cabinet including the prime minister, Mark Rutte. Local Dutch newspapers reported that in the provincial elections campaign earlier this month, Machiel de Graaf, PVV party leader for the Senate also called for banning the hijab. The important provincial elections allow voters to elect members of the States-Provincial, the provincial parliament and legislative assembly in each province of the country, and thus voters indirectly choose Parliament members, since the members of the twelve States-Provincial elect the Senate's 75 members. The feud between Europe and the Islamic head dress has been the subject of intense debate following the ban France imposed on the head scarf in public places in 2004. Many European countries have followed Paris' example in imposing laws that ban the hijab from public places and government educational facilities. Hennis, joined by other law makers, argued that it is a matter of separation of state and church. “I would like to hold a more reflective debate about the separation of church and state,” Hennis said. “We talk a lot about the separation of church and state, but the church has become involved in the state in a lot of ways,” she added to the newspaper. She also claimed that Christian right was against the debate, as they see it as part of freedom of religion. “They regard it as an infringement on freedom of religion,” she added. On January, a young student won a complaint filed against her school for not allowing her to attend classes while wearing her head scarf. According to Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW), student Iman Mahssan, 15, asked the school permission in February 2010 to wear her head scarf, but her request was met with silence. At the beginning of the new school year, Mahssan decided to wear her everyday piece of clothing, a move that was met harshly by the school, which imposed a ban on the Islamic dress in the school. Mahssan filed a complaint against the school with the Equal Treatment Commission and the committee ruled in her favor on January 7. Yet, the school is continuing to refuse to implement the committee decision and has maintained its ban. BM
