If this isn’t a canary in a coalmine story we don’t know what is…
After teaching assistant Zahra Khan was instructed to tell a student to remove her hijab, a religious headscarf worn by some Muslim women, she donned one herself as an act of solidarity.
“I started to wear a hijab to support the students, and to make the teachers understand what it is,” Khan, who works at a Salvation Army school in Hong Kong, told HKFP. “I wanted them to be more accepting of their non-Chinese students.”
But what Khan – herself a Muslim – experienced left her feeling “upset and frustrated” about the way ethnic minority groups are treated in Hong Kong, highlighting the need for more understanding and education in schools and at the work place.
‘Unsanitary and unhygienic’
In early June, a student at the Salvation Army Centaline Charity Fund School, who was wearing a hijab, was allegedly discriminated against by a teacher, who told her that it was “unsanitary” and “unhygienic,” according to Khan. The teacher added that it would cause pimples on the student’s forehead and could “suffocate” her.
Khan said she tried to make the teacher understand the importance of the hijab for Muslim women but her input was dismissed abruptly. In an act of unity, she wore one herself in an attempt to change the teacher’s mind.
She said she herself was asked to remove it and was called to the principal’s office, where she was told that she would “scare the students and teachers” by wearing the headscarf.
