"Is Islam Endangering 'Europeanness?'
As Muslim Populations Increase, 'Islamophobia' Rises in Europe
By LEELA JACINTO
Dec. 7, 2004 - It was not what she said, but the way she looked and her manner of dress that had the crowd hooting and jeering as she addressed a conference in Paris last year.
When Salma Yaqoob, a 32-year-old British Muslim activist, took the stand at the November 2003 European Social Forum, she was taken aback by the ruckus.
As chairwoman of the Stop the War Coalition in Birmingham, England, Yaqoob was in Paris to talk about the backlash against British Muslims sparked off by the war on terror during a session titled 'Dimensions of Islam.' But it was her veil, or hijab, that turned into the subject of an acrimonious dispute.
This was months before France passed a controversial law banning head scarves in public schools, and Yaqoob, a psychotherapist who took up community service shortly after the 9/11 attacks, says she was rattled by the audience hostility.
'I was genuinely shocked how people reacted just because I happened to be wearing a hijab,' Yaqoob recalled in a phone interview. 'It was actually a very upsetting experience. It was shocking to see people so passionate and, in my view, so ignorant of basic things, basic things like etiquette. [They] felt they had a right to behave that way in the name of what they thought was freedom and liberation.' "
More:ABC News: Is Islam Endangering 'Europeanness?'
