Prison trainee quits over Muslim headscarf

MONTREAL, March 15 (UPI) -- A Canadian prison guard trainee has quit her job rather than quit wearing her Muslim headscarf.

Quebec Deputy Security Minister Jean Lortie called the situation unfortunate but said authorities at Bordeaux Prison near Montreal enforced the rules properly because the scarf, called a hijab, could be used to strangle a guard or as a weapon if grabbed by a prisoner, the CBC reported Thursday. "Even the RCMP, the federal corrections system, nobody is allowing it," Lortie told CBC.

Sarah Elgazzar of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations said urged compromise, something Lortie said he'd consider. "There's really no shortage of ingenuity when it comes to hijabs," she said. "There's about a million and eight different ways to wear it."

Sondos Abdelatif said she had included photos of herself wearing the hijab in her job application. But the 19-year-old said she was called into the prison director's office Tuesday and told she had to choose between her job and her hijab, The (Toronto) Globe and Mail said.

"He told me either not to wear it or I can't work here," Abdelatif told the Globe and Mail. "I said, 'OK, I'm not going to work here.'"