No Comment Again

At Yesterday's Foreign Affairs ministry press conference:

Do you have a reaction to the statements by World Jewish Congress chairman of the board Israel Singer, who felt that banning the Islamic veil in French public schools could create a "ghetto" phenomenon and "second class citizens"?

"I have no comment to make on Mr. Singer's statements. Incidentally, the implementation of the so-called law on secularism does not fall under the responsibilities of the Ministry Foreign Affairs."

The AFP reports that Singer made the remarks in question in yesterday's issue of the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel (any help here, Medienkritik folks or readers of German?) on the opening day of the second conference on anti-Semitism held by the Organizsation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mr. Singer also had some remarks that should echo deep within us all. AFP reports that Tagesspiegel writes that Singer "believes that in this way a minority is being lead into the ghetto, that they are being charicatured, that they are not being helped to open themselves to the world, to become part of society, that they are being isolated."

UPDATE: David Kaspar emails to provide a link to the original article in Tagesspiegel. David says, "Singer makes his comment to the banning of the veil in French schools in the last paragraph."

Thanks, David!