Some fear the French hijab ban could be enforced outside state schools.(AFP)

PARIS/BERLIN, December 23 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Muslim women in France were again discriminated against over their hijab while a mosque in Germany was the target of an apparent arson attack.

The central police station in Sanz Sans, a Paris suburb, denied five hijab-clad women entry to a city hall where three of them were to attend their naturalization ceremony, although there is no law justifying the move, the London-based Arabic-speaking daily Al-Hayat reported on Thursday, December 23.

The French newspaper Liberation quoted Hamida Bin Saadia, the head of a femal equality group, as saying the women were asked by police officers to remove hijab before entering the ceremony hall.

The officers said they got the orders from their bosses, Bin Saadia said, adding that the deputy chief of the station gave a nod to the move.

He claimed that the orders did not came in compliance with a specific law, but with the principles marking such a symbolic ceremony in which national anthem was played and integration highlighted, she said.

France recently adopted a controversial bill banning hijab and religious insignia in only public schools, which came into effect with the beginning of the academic year in September.

However, the director of the Sanz Sans police station, Michel Tope, reserved the right to ban any religious statement in an official ceremony as that held for naturalization, Al-Hayat reported.

The targeted women said they were surrounded by some ten policemen after they refused to take off hijab.

Al-Hayat said such separate incidents raise questions as to whether the French government would push the hijab ban in areas other than schools.

The French ban drew protests across the world, with the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) dismissing it as “discriminatory.”

Islam sees hijab as an obligatory  code of dress, not a symbol of religious statement as crucifixes of Christianity or Kappa of Judaism.

Mosque Attacks

A file photo of a mosque in Germany

Meanwhile, a mosque in the western German town of Usingen was damaged by a fire which broke out early on Thursday.

German police said they were investigating the cause of the blaze, which was spotted by a motorist at 5:20 am (0420 GMT) and extinguished by the fire brigade, reported Reuters.

“Detectives are investigating all possible causes,” said police spokesman Siegfried Schlott.

“We haven't ruled anything out,” he said when asked if it was an arson attack.

No one was hurt in the fire which caused about 50,000 euros ($67,000) worth in damage, Schlott said.

Usingen, a small town of about 35,000, is 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Frankfurt.

In November, following arson attacks on mosques in neighboring Netherlands, a petrol bomb thrown at a mosque in the German southwestern town of Sinsheim destroyed its entrance and caused about 10,000 euros damage.

The blaze came a few weeks a series of Muslim sites and mosques came under racist attacks possibly linked to the murder of a controversial filmmaker in neighboring Holland.

That has raised fears that the tension could spill over and move across borders to  Germany.

Germany recently proposed an action plan to fight extremism and promote Muslim integration in society.

Five years ago, only 65 percent of the estimated 2.1 million Turks in Germany felt they were being treated as second-class citizens compared to 80 percent in 2004, according to a recent study by the Turkish Studies Center in the Rhein region.

A study conducted by the University of Bielefeld’s Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence had also shown that Islamophobia was on the rise in Germany.