SOFIA — The Bulgarian government approved Thursday, March 26, a draft bill banning hijab and other religious symbols in schools.
"We express our disagreement and bitterness with this decision," Hussein Hafazov of the Chief Mufti office told Reuters.
"It completely damages the rights as well as the responsibilities of Muslim women."
The bill calls for banning hijab and other religious symbols in schools.
It still needs to be approved by parliament.
Bulgaria is the latest European country to ban the Muslim headscarf.
France banned the Muslim veil in public places in 2004, with several European countries following suit.
Hijab is an obligatory code of dress for Muslim women, not a symbol that shows ones religious affiliation.
Tension
The Chief Mufti warned that the bill would increase community tensions in the Balkan country.
He said there had been arson attacks on mosques and other Muslim buildings and girls had already been forbidden from wearing hijab in some schools.
Bulgaria is the only EU state where Muslims are not recent immigrants but a centuries-old local community.
Muslims, who make up 12 percent of Bulgaria's 7.8 million population, have lived with Christians in relative harmony for centuries.
Mostly ethnic Turkish descendants of the Ottoman Empire's reach into Europe, they live beside Christians in a culture known as "komshuluk", or neighborly relations.
Mosques and Islamic schools are common sights in Bulgaria.
The ethnic-Turkish MRF party has also become a powerful political force, participating in the last two governments.
