Islamophobia has surged in the province of Quebec since the government there proposed a law forbidding the wearing of religious symbols by public servants, warn Muslim organizations. They held a news conference in Montreal to draw attention to an alarming increase in verbal and physical attacks against Muslim women wearing headscarves.
The proposed Charter of Values to be presented tomorrow (November 7) would stop employees on the public payroll from wearing ostentatious religious symbols like hijabs, kippas (Jewish skullcaps), or crosses.
Muslims victims of politicking?
The reasoning given is that Quebec is a secular state, its population having thrown off the strictures of the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960s. Pundits argue that it has more to do with the current government seeking to build electoral support in the rural regions of Quebec which are more conservative and less cosmopolitan than is the city of Montreal.
Muslims say they are the victims, particularly women. “Today Muslim women wearing veils are scared to go [out] publicly and to walk alone in parks, in buses, in metros, in malls. So this is really dangerous now,” said Adil Charkaoui, spokesman for Quebec Collective Against Islamophobia.
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