Source: Agence France Presse/Arab News
http://arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=109058&d=17&m=4&y=2008&pix=world.jpg&category=World%22
The parents of a nine-year-old boy called Islam are to press charges for discrimination after a French television production company allegedly excluded their son from its programs because of his name, a report said yesterday.
His mother, Farah Alaouchiche, told Le Parisien newspaper that the boy had been told in the offices of Angel Productions that his name “represented a religion that was not liked in France.”
The comment was made after Islam went with his parents, who have Algerian nationality, to the company’s offices in February for the final stage in a selection process to take part in a youth program called “In ze boite” (In the box).
But he was told there that he could not use his name if he wanted to be in the program because “being called Islam if you are a boy is like a girl wearing the (Islamic) veil,” his mother told Le Parisien.