Spanish school forced to let girl wear headscarf
MADRID • An eight-year-old Muslim girl in Spain who stayed off school when told to remove her headscarf returned to classes yesterday after her school was ordered to let her wear the traditional head cover, her mother said.

The regional government of Catalonia told the school in Girona to let Shaima Saidani wear the scarf on grounds it would be discrimination not to do so, local media reported.

“She went back to school today, it's all been resolved, thank God it's over,” Noana Alharami, the girl's mother, said by telephone.

Catalonia's education department overruled the Joan Puigbert-Annexa public school on grounds the Spanish state respects all religions and allows Muslims to wear the hijab.

Saidani's mother said her daughter had lived much of her life in Morocco with her grandmother, who gave her a religious education. She said it was Saidani's decision to wear a hijab.