Iraqi militants have kidnapped two Frenchmen to protest France’s ban on students wearing Islamic head coverings in public schools, according to a tape aired by Al-Jazeera television.
The Qatar-based satellite news channel said it had received a tape from a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq showing several seconds of video footage with two men talking.
Al-Jazeera did not say when it received the tape, which could not be immediately authenticated.
The French Foreign Ministry said it had no immediate information.
The station’s newsreader said the group described the French law banning religious apparel in public schools as “an aggression on the Islamic religion and personal freedoms.”
The group, according to the newsreader, gave the French government 48 hours to overturn the law, without mentioning any ultimatum.
These religious fanatics have gone stark raving bonkers.
Lordy be, the Blunkett as a blanketing idiot is about head to head here, if not ahead! :
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina40828.htm
The Norman Conquest was at least for the betterment of all eventually. This Blunkett buffoon gonna darken the whole world’s horizon! There can be no greater infamy from England today!
Shocking! For in that once long respected model of a Democratic country, free speech is set to die ignominiously and some sick absolutist ideology gets to be beyond reproach!
Comment by wits0 — 29 Aug, 2004 @ 07:50
I hope the French don’t change the law in response to this, but I do hope they eventually change the law, which is outrageous. This law
1) essentially places Muslim women under house arrest, and
2) appears to be a back-door way of outlawing yamulkas (and large crosses). The French are galloping down the slope of confusing “freedom of religion” with “freedom from religion.”
Comment by Attila Girl — 29 Aug, 2004 @ 15:02
“I wonder if France will surrender.”
How would we be able to tell?
Comment by Bostonian — 29 Aug, 2004 @ 22:18
Ahem, judging from the pic in : http://diggsc.typepad.com/
I’ll bet surrendering is easier.
Comment by wits0 — 29 Aug, 2004 @ 22:53