The Editor
The Guardian
1st Feb 2005

Dear Sir,

Stuart Jeffries ("If only we were more like the French," 31 January 2004) makes the absurd suggestion that the French law restricting a Muslim woman's liberty to observe religious dress "surely sought to make Muslim ghettoes a thing of the past." Jeffries fails to appreciate that social deprivation is not remedied by reducing issues pertaining to poverty and discrimination to the dress of women.

Only financial investment and cessation of racist rhetoric passed off a "laicité" will lead to the "hopeful trajectory" that is apparent to Jeffries. The iniquitous discrimination that is employed to enforce a particular cultural lifestyle will only lead to a homogeneous society that eschews cultural innovation and rejects alternative lifestyles.

Tariq Hameed,
Media Committee,
The Muslim Council of Britain