Muslims in France

You may have heard of dozens of podcasts and read a pile of reports about activists who were arrested or killed just because they sought justice. You may also have wondered whether those activists had lived unjust lives, or they had just devoted their lives to advocate for minorities or to raise the voice of the right. Conversely, have you thought about the reasons behind the activists' blaring? In other words, why are activists protesting? This is a fundamental question; a lot of reinforcement given to activists but fewer considerations, or maybe none, given to the injustice that should be lifted. In this respect, Muslims in France, who constitute about 6% of the French population, totalling around 4 million Muslims across France, have been living in constant threats and racism; their rights of dressing, worshiping, and expressing have been undermined. In 1989, years after the Human Rights charter had been declared, three Muslim schoolgirls were expelled from school just because they wore a headscarf (Hijab). Hijab thus, has been a controversial matter for almost every French government ever since. In 2003, the French president demanded the policymakers to draft an act that prohibited the wearing of visible religious signs in schools.

Such absurd decisions have shaken the ground of loyalty and co-existence beneath the Muslim community in France. Moreover, to make matters worse, the French media has been

recently targeting the most respected person in Islamic doctrine - The Prophet Mohammed - under the so-called "freedom of speech", which seems to be in explicit contradiction with the official position against headscarves. The latter should as well have been considered as a

freedom of religious expression. Such a simplistic view, so to speak, against Islam in France has affected the concept of liberty amongst the French community which eventually opened the floodgate of racism to the anti-Islam extremists. As a matter of fact, a survey shows that 60% of Muslim women were subject to discrimination just because they wear Hijab, 37% of Muslims in France were attacked orally, 13% of incidents of religious discrimination occurred at police points and 17% happened at job interviews. Also, the survey shows that 24% of Muslims have been exposed to verbal aggression during their lifetime, compared to 9% among non-Muslims.

Last but not least, earlier this year, it was reported by the French Muslim Council that Muslims were put under pressure to sign up for a charter of French values without minimum consideration to the Islamic practices. This ideology adopted by a government that has the

largest Muslim population in Europe has been posed as a national security - fighting radicalization. This justification, however, is the same as the one made by the government of China to legitimize its aggressive acts towards Uighur Muslims; same justification claimed by the current government of India to pass a discriminatory act of Citizenship that excludes Muslim refugees from certain countries to be given the Indian nationality; same justification made by the government of Myanmar to subject Rohingya Muslims with torture and military operations.

Variation of allegations made by legitimate governments to legitimize their discriminatory and aggressive acts towards Muslims in their countries is to serve the same purpose: to silence Muslims.