Thaindian News

London, May 13 (ANI): A fourteen-year-old British girl was branded as truant because she refused to dress as a Muslim and visit a mosque.

Amy Owen and her classmates were instructed to wear a headscarf, trousers or leggings and cover their arms for the “compulsory” field trip to promote “community cohesion”.

She was asked to make a three-pound contribution towards the trip to the Al Rahma mosque in Toxteth, Liverpool, last month, but when she objected to the dress code, head teacher Peter Lee told her the visit was “as compulsory as a geography field trip”.

But after she objected and boycotted the outing, she was told her refusal was being treated as non-attendance and it would be marked down as an “unauthorised absence” in the school register, the Daily Express reported.

Her mother Michelle Davies, 34, said yesterday: “I kept Amy off school because I objected to her being ordered to dress like a Muslim girl. She’s been brought up in the Catholic faith and religion. She’s not a Muslim and shouldn’t be told to dress like one.”

Mike Judge, spokesman for the Christian Institute, which promotes Christian religion and education in the UK, said: “I’m all for children learning about different religions but to insist someone should dress as a Muslim to visit a mosque and then punish them when they refuse is a disgrace.”

A school spokesman said: “In keeping with accepted good practice we are pleased to provide students with an experience of a visit to a mosque and the chance to question a representative of the community which it serves.” (ANI)