'Headscarves, secularism and the battle of democracy’

President Jacques Chirac of France announced on December 17/ 2003 that legislation would be introduced to implement the recommendations of a commission on secularism that reported back a week earlier. Its main thrust is to ban “ostensible” religious and political symbols in all state schools - most notably the Muslim headscarf, or hijab. What should be the attitude of the left? Should we stand for the right of Muslim women to wear a symbol of their religious convictions, or welcome the ban as a defense of secularism and the separation of church and state? Come along and debate the issues.

Speakers: Peter Manson (editor, Weekly Worker); Houzan Mahmoud (Worker Communist Party of Iraq and editor in chief of Equal Rights Now!, official paper of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq); Terry Liddle (Socialist Secular Society - personal capacity). Speakers invited from Workers Fight (fraternal organization of French left group, Lutte Ouvrière) and the Progressive Muslim Network.

Sunday, January 18 - 6pm. Diorama Arts Centre, 34 Osnaburgh Street, London NW1 (nearest tubes Regents Park or Great Portland Street).