Quebec: Muslim woman chooses head scarf over job

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Muslim rights groups were angry Friday that a young Muslim woman was forced to quit her job at a prison after she refused to remove her religious headscarf. Asked to choose between the scarf and a new training program at Montreal's Bordeaux jail, Sondos Abdelatif, 19, chose to wear her hijab and walked away from the job on Tuesday. The incident has upset Muslim groups and fueled debate in predominantly Roman Catholic Quebec over reasonable accommodation for its religious and cultural minorities. Abdelatif, whose family said she was in school and could not be reached for comment Friday, quit the program after she was told that a hostile prisoner could use her hijab to strangle her. Quebec's Public Security Department and the labor union representing prison guards supported the decision.