By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Paris Correspondent
PARIS, March 27, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – French Muslim women can now make their voice heard and vent their anger over down-trodden rights through Magali Seneba.
Singled out by her hijab, Seneba is the first French Muslim woman singer defending the rights of her fellow ones in France against the media blitz targeting her religion across Europe.
She made her debut at the 22nd conference of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF), Paris-le-Bourget, which kicked off on Friday, March 25.
The conference played her first album “Faithful Women,” which found attentive ears among the gathering.
“The album is a simple token from the French League of Muslim Women to the conference, all Muslim women in France and in the West,” Seneba told IslamOnline.net.
“You can say what you want through singing, but what really matters is the lyrics through which I express the feelings of Muslim women in France.
“My songs also call for granting full citizenship to Muslims in France and criticizes Muslim hardliners as well,” added the mother-of-two, who embraced Islam eight years ago and is married to a French-Moroccan.
The 27-year-old activist said the controversial anti-hijab bill in France provoked her into singing loudly against the denial of religious freedoms.
Hijab was indeed the thorniest issue that set off seismic waves in the country, especially after the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and the opposition Socialist Party (PS) joined forces and got the measure enacted.
After it came into fruition at the beginning of the new school year in September, some 48 hijab-donned students were kicked out of state schools.
France has a population of about six million Muslims, the biggest Muslim minority in Europe.
Supporting Palestine
The conference also played host to the Charity Committee in Support of Palestine in defiance of the US-Israeli ferocious campaign to pressure France into banning the NGO.
“The committee is coming under intense US pressure although it was established 15 years ago to cater for the orphans,” Khaled Al-Shouri, the committee foreign affairs official, told IOL.
“The US campaign,” he adds, “is targeting 4,802 families looked after by the committee.”
“The committee has nothing to hide and its tallies are audited by the official accountant, who reported to the government that the committee had no political or religious affiliations.”
The committee raised funds for the Palestinian orphans, schoolchildren and needy families on the sidelines of the conference.
The Bourget conference opened Friday “to reach a common ground between the West and Islam,” said UOIF President Thami Breze.
More than 150,000 Muslims from across Europe are expected to attend the four-day event, up from last year's 120,000.