Foto: Lise Åserud / SCANPIX

“We actually believe that a ban against the use of headscarves in the nine-year school will be a good integrating effort,” said Per Sandberg, spokesperson on integration questions, to TV 2.

The Progress party is currently working on a bill to ban hijab in the nine-year school.

France was the first country to suggest banning, and the bill will most likely be accepted in Paris shortly. However, in France the ban includes all kinds of religious symbols including crosses and the David star. The bill from the Progress party will only involve the Muslim headscarves.

Sandberg denies that this is discrimination.

“There is nothing in the Koran, nothing in Islam, which says that girls have to dress in this way to symbolize their religion,” Sandberg stated.

Torbjørn Røe Isaksen in Unge Høyre, the Conservatives’ youth organization, said the suggestion is “completely hopeless.”

“There are still some of us who think religious freedom is important in Norway,” said Røe Isaksen. “Per Sandberg is apparently not apart of the group. I can’t say how hopeless I think the suggestion is. Frp is even so plainly racialist that they are making a bill which only affects the people who wear Muslim headscarves and not the people who for example wear other religious symbols.”