Muslim groups pledge to monitor Quebec ban on school prayer spaces | 24CA News

Muslim teams are talking out towards the Quebec authorities’s intention to ban prayer areas in public faculties, saying they’ll monitor how the Education Department enforces its new guidelines.

In response to stories that no less than two Montreal-area faculties had reserved areas for Muslim college students to wish, Education Minister Bernard Drainville promised final week to ban faculties from doing so. The minister, nevertheless, stated he wouldn’t ban prayer altogether; college students who wished to wish ought to achieve this “discreetly” and “silently,” he instructed reporters.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims stated Monday it might maintain tabs on how the federal government enforced the ban on prayer areas, including that it might “take action” if the rights of scholars have been violated.

“We haven’t actually seen how that is going to tangibly impact people,” Stephen Brown, chief govt officer of the council, stated in an interview. “So (if) these directives would in fact constitute in practice a limitation on people’s fundamental rights, then we would do something, we would take action.”

The Education Department didn’t reply on Monday to a request asking whether or not Drainville’s directive had been applied.

Drainville’s place hardened over a 24-hour interval final week. His first response to the stories of college prayer areas was to announce that faculties couldn’t privilege one faith over one other and that they’d to make sure the areas revered gender equality. But he rapidly modified his thoughts after the Parti Québécois known as for stronger measures, suggesting Drainville’s authentic conciliatory stance would encourage extra faculties to open up prayer rooms.

Drainville is understood for presenting a so-called values constitution when he was in authorities with the PQ in 2013. The constitution known as for individuals who put on spiritual symbols to be prohibited from working in public establishments. The constitution was a precursor to the Coalition Avenir Québec’s secularism legislation — Bill 21 — which was handed in 2019 and prohibits many public servants, together with academics, from sporting spiritual symbols at work. The minister joined the CAQ forward of the 2022 election.

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Civil rights lawyer Julius Grey stated Quebec faculties — no matter Bill 21 — don’t have any obligation to open areas devoted to prayer. The authorities might be in authorized hassle, nevertheless, if it prevents college students from praying altogether.

“What would be totally contrary to the Charter — and I think will get struck down — is a prohibition on individuals praying in schools,” Grey stated in an interview Monday. “I don’t think they’ll do that; I think that would be asking for a challenge.”

Drainville’s resolution final week was denounced by a gaggle of Muslim organizations and mosques — Table de concertation des organismes musulmans — which stated the minister ought to have met with neighborhood leaders earlier than prohibiting college prayer areas.

Montreal Imam Hassan Guillet described the state of affairs as a “tempest in teacup,” saying media organizations and politicians had steered there was one thing nefarious about Muslim college students praying in school. In Islam, individuals pray 5 instances a day and through Ramadan, there’s an uptick in individuals who pray, he stated.

While individuals are fasting — which is required throughout Ramadan from daybreak to sundown — some individuals choose to wish throughout these intervals, he added.

“My message to the Quebec government is to be practical, to respect citizens … all citizens, regardless of their religion or their faith or their origin; the government is the government of everybody,” Guillet stated in an interview Monday. “Secularism is not a carte blanche to erase religion or religious practice.”

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