Quebec Premier François Legault says he doesn’t “definitely” agree with Muslim girls inside the province who say they’ve been the goal of Islamophobic incidents since the government passed a law making it unlawful for some civil servants to wear spiritual symbols.
Several Muslim women who put on both the hijab and niqab have advised CBC News that, since the reason that regulation was tabled in March, they have been confused, made the target of hateful comments, and even spat on.
A women’s advocacy institution, Justice Femme, recorded more than 40 Islamophobic incidents around Montreal in the past due months and early May.
Muslim network leaders have shared stories on social media that the incidents of harassment have not died down within the two weeks since the law came into effect.
Legault was asked on Thursday on CBC Radio whether he believes the new regulation, which bars public teachers and other authority figures from wearing secular symbols, makes some Quebecers more at risk of racism.
“For the humans coping with this invoice … They are saying that they’ve obtained a greater degree of harassment and intimidation or even assaults because the invoice passed,” the host of CBC Montreal’s Daybreak, Ainslie MacLellan, told Legault.
“Do you trust those memories — that they’re truly facing these items?”
Legault responded: “Not virtually.”
The most suitable went on to explain the nonsecular symbols regulation as mild because it applies handiest to a small range of civil servants: public school teachers, faculty principals, government lawyers, cops, judges, and natural world officers are prohibited from wearing signs of their religion.
“[The law] is pretty similar to what we have in Belgium, in France, in Germany,” Legault stated.
After Quebec’s secularism regulation, Muslim women have to determine, ‘What are we able to do now?’
He was referring to legal guidelines in Belgium that ban face-covering veils in public. A comparable ban exists in France, in which it’s also illegal for college students and instructors to wear religious symbols in country colleges. Several German states have implemented their very own limits on which spiritual symbols may be worn.
“When I pay attention to some people pronouncing that Quebec [is becoming] racist, does that imply Germany, France, and Belgium are racist?” Legault requested.