WASHINGTON – An American actress encouraged women to wear a hijab on Donald Trump’s inauguration day and Washington march in a show of solidarity with Muslim women who don the Islamic attire.

“We wanted to create an action, visible and easy, to proclaim our commitment to freedom of religion and to the constitution — religion or no religion,” Kathy Najimy, best known for starring in Sister Act and Disney’s Hocus Pocus, said in a statement posted on Facebook, The Independent reported.

“We intend to show that we stand in solidarity with our about-to-be-disenfranchised Muslim sisters.”

Najimy, 59, recommended women attending an anti-inauguration march in Washington on Friday wear a scarf around their heads, “hijab style”, as a way of standing with their “about-to-be-disenfranchised Muslim Sisters”.

The actress insisted that such an act would only indicate “standing for freedom”, adding: “We support every woman’s right to worship as they wish and live in security and peace.

“We are by no means endorsing or aligning with any religious doctrine, but simply standing for freedom.”

Following Trump’s surprise election victory, Muslim women in the US expressed “tremendous levels of fear” over the incoming administration, after the President-elect’s repeated criticism of Muslims and campaign pledge to ban them from entering the USA, promising a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” entering the country.

Najimy, who lead a campaign group called Sisterhood of the Travelling Scarves in the nationwide, will participate in Washington women march which is expected to see more than 100,000 people in Washington to protest against Trump’s presidency, viewing it specifically as a “feminist issue”.

“I saw a woman with an hijab, and I thought, how can she know that I support her without going up and embarrassing her? So I thought, what if we wore them on Inauguration Day?” she told American website People.

“All issues of freedom and human rights are important to me, and I’m not a religious person or a person who supports any particular religion, but I believe in rights as a citizen, in American rights. And I believe, as the constitution says, the right to worship however you choose.”