Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000 Issue No. 505
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Veiled resentment

By Gihan Shahine

Azza (top) and her brothers : Youssef, Yassin and Seif

The first day of school is never smooth sailing, but for 12-year-old Azza Amr Zaki, it was particularly difficult this year. A first-year preparatory student at Alexandria's Champollion School, Azza was forbidden from attending classes, and was forced to spend the first two weeks of school alone in the library. She was also asked not to socialise with the other children. Two weeks later, Azza was stopped at the gate when she went to collect her younger brothers and was prohibited from entering the school.

On 3 October, Azza's parents received an official letter informing them that Azza and her three brothers had been dismissed officially. The decision to dismiss the four students was taken by the school's council of parents, which found Azza and her brothers to "have been a threat to the security of the school and a source of disturbance to its administrative board."

Azza is the oldest; her three brothers, Seif, Youssef and Yassin, are 11, nine and four respectively. Can children that young pose a threat to the school's security?

This year, though, Azza had decided to wear the hijab (Islamic headdress); the administration considers this a violation of the secular system by which the school is run. "On the first day, the headmaster called me into his office and asked me to take off the veil," Azza recounts. Having refused, she was sent to the library, where another teacher tried to talk her into accepting the headmaster's order.

"I was shocked, because there was another veiled girl in the school before," Azza remarks. "Wearing the hijab was my personal choice; even my mother wanted me to wait a bit. But I never expected to be dismissed just because I put on a scarf."

The Champollion School follows the French educational system: its syllabus, teachers, certificate and administration are purely French. Arabic and religion are not included in the curriculum, while children are introduced to French, instead of Arab, history.

The school has made it clear that it follows a secular system and that students, accordingly, are not allowed to manifest any sign of religiosity.

The Champollion School was established in 1978 according to an agreement between the Association des Parents d'Elèves de L'Ecole Française (APEEF), a non-governmental association based in Alexandria, and the French Ministry of Education. The agreement was signed within the framework of an Egyptian-French educational exchange protocol (signed in 1968) that allows both countries to establish educational facilities (like the French Cultural Centre in Egypt) on the territory of the other and provide teachers' training. The parents have long perceived the school as an affiliate of the French embassy in Egypt. That perception was based on the fact that the sign on the school's front gate bears the words "French Embassy." In fact, the French embassy's only role is to protect French teachers there.

But what does all this have to do with Azza and her brothers?

According to Adel El-Nabli, the family's lawyer, no French law issued between 1989 and 1999 prohibits students from wearing the Islamic headdress inside French schools. Under French law, El-Nabli explains, students are free to wear whatever they like inside educational facilities, as long as their outfits do not affect the regularity of their attendance or pose a threat to the safety and health of other students. "The headscarf (which is not considered a symbol of Islam in France) is thus legally allowed in French schools in terms of personal freedom, and it's not within the legal capacity of any school administration to dismiss girls who decide to veil," El-Nabli explains.

"The attitude of the administrative board can thus be explained in light of clear unawareness of the French law and the rulings of France's supreme administrative court," El-Nabli concludes. "The board's obstinacy also reflects indifference to the cultural background and norms of the school's social environment."

For engineer Amr Zaki, Azza's father, the "arbitrary decision" to dismiss Azza and her three brothers is a violation of the children's right to primary education and freedom of expression. "Our children are shocked," Zaki says. "It is really unfair to the kids: they miss school and friends. If the school cannot accept Azza for wearing the veil, why dismiss the boys? The boys will not get veiled, will they?" he demands angrily.

If the administration took the decision to dismiss the children, furthermore, why did the parents' council, many members of which are Egyptian, agree? Witnesses to the discussions that preceded the decision say parents acquiesced because they were afraid the school would be closed down. The president of the council is also said to have been resentful of the disturbance Azza's parents caused by speaking to the press. It is said he believed the publicity could make the school a target for terrorist action.

At the parents' council meeting that convened on 30 September, the president told the assembly that the four children had been dismissed "not because of the veil but because of the havoc the family caused," according to witnesses. The decision, he further explained, was in the interest of the school's 260 other students.

Azza's parents have been looking for a school in which to enroll their children since their dismissal, but to no avail. "The other schools have said the French system is different from the Egyptian and it's too late to enroll newcomers now anyway," says Azza's mother. "I cannot believe my four kids are being deprived of primary education just because of a scarf that barely covers Azza's hair."

Will the ministry of education take action to resolve the problem? The Champollion School is on Egyptian territory, and accepts Egyptian students, which should make it subject to the supervision of the Egyptian ministry of education.

"The ministry has nothing to do with the school, which follows the French system and is subject to the French ministry of education," says Ragab Sharabi, first deputy minister of education. "The school is a part of France and we have no right to interfere with its policy."

Why then allow Egyptians to attend? "The school is not open to Egyptians. Those who seek to enroll their children there must obtain the approval of the minister of education," retorts Sharabi. "The problem is not with the school, but with Egyptians who enroll their children in a secular educational system that does not teach them Arabic or religion." Sharabi feels Azza's parents are to blame, "because they shouldn't have chosen a secular school in the first place." Still, he said he would be willing to help them enroll the children "at any school they want."

Alexandria Governor Abdel-Salam El-Mahgoub has also expressed his support. "The governor called us to say he was ready to help us," Zaki told the Weekly. "Still, no school has agreed to take our children."

Azza's parents say they "didn't know the school was secular. We were fooled into believing that it was affiliated to the embassy." Azza's mother added: "The system cannot be secular because the school has a church where students and teachers pray every week and there are crosses on almost all the doors. If they accept the cross, why not the scarf?"

Azza's friends asked their teacher the same question. The children said their Christian friends wear crosses, and the same rule should have applied to Azza.

"When we registered the children there was already a veiled student at the school," Zaki says. "We thought we could benefit from the high educational standards and depend on ourselves to teach our children Arabic and religion. It worked: Azza is excellent in Arabic and has memorised parts of the Qur'an. The new headmaster, however, seems not to like it."

As for the headmaster and teachers, they are exercising their own freedom of expression -- by refusing to talk to the press.

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