International Shia News Agency
EuropeFeaturedHuman rights

What IHRL says about French bill banning Hijab in sports?

French bill banning hijabs in sports

SHAFAQNA | by Leila Yazdani: A draft French bill banning Hijab in sports will pass on to France’s National Assembly after the Senate declined to vote on the legislation. The affair is becoming a hot topic in French politics, just two months away from presidential elections. What does IHRL say about French bill banning Hijab in sports?

The broader bill is devoted to “democratising sport”, including how the big sporting federations are governed. But it includes a clause, previously attached as an amendment by the conservative-dominated upper house, stipulating that the wearing “of conspicuous religious symbols is prohibited” in events and competitions organised by sports federations. France will host the Summer Olympics in 2024 and critics of the legislation have questioned how it would affect protocol at the Games, whose participants will include Muslim countries, if it were adopted.

A long-running matter of controversy in France

The place of religion and religious symbols worn in public is a long-running matter of controversy in France, a staunchly secular country and home to Europe’s largest Muslim minority. Identity and Islam’s place in French society are hot-button issues ahead of April’s presidential election, with two far-right candidates whose nationalist programmes question Islam’s compatibility with the Republic’s values polling nearly 35% of voter support between them.

The move is, however, opposed by President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government and its allies who command a majority in the National Assembly, which has the final vote. Macron’s government had been swift to denounce the amendment. Given the majority wielded by his party and its allies in the lower house, the amendment is likely to be removed from the broader bill.

“Our enemy is radical Islamism, not Islam,” Marlene Schiappa, junior Minister for Citizenship, said. At Wednesday’s (16 Feb 2022) debate in the National Assembly, Les Républicains MP Éric Ciotti, an advisor to the party’s presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse, lambasted the government for what he considers its meekness in the face of creeping Islamism in French society. “Islamism is spreading in prayer rooms, mosques, homes and now in sports clubs!” he said.

Let us play

A group of young women, some of them wearing Hijab, gathered on the grassy Esplanade des Invalides in Paris, armed with placards painted with slogans like “Football for all” and “Let us play”. These women are part of the activist group ‘The Hijabeuses’, a collective of female football players fighting for the right to wear Hijab in official matches, which is banned in France. French Football Federation rules currently prevent players taking part in competitive matches from wearing “ostentatious” religious symbols such as Muslim headscarves or the Jewish kippa. The French football federation already bans women from wearing the Hijab in official matches, as well as at competitions it organises.

The reasons quoted by France are inadequate in IHRL

The recent uproar on wearing the Hijab in Karnataka’s educational institutions has reignited the debate around gender equality and freedom of religion. These are not just constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights, but are also recognised human rights. Hence, the Hijab ban also needs to be seen from an international human rights law (IHRL) perspective. On October 11, 2010, France passed a law, Act No. 2010-1192, which stipulated that “No one may, in a public space, wear any article of clothing intended to conceal the face”. Violations of the law were punishable by imprisonment and fines. Miriana Hebbadj and Sonia Yaker, two French Muslim women, were fined under this law for wearing a Burqa in public.

Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) reads, “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public [emphasis mine] or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.”

Way back in 1993, in its General Comment No. 22, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC or Committee) interpreted the scope of this Article to include “not only ceremonial acts but also such customs as the observance of dietary regulations, the wearing of distinctive clothing or head coverings.” France, like India and most countries in the world, has signed and ratified the Convention. This means that it has a legal obligation to respect, protect and implement the Covenant’s provisions into its domestic jurisdiction. At the very least, it cannot violate them.

Arguing that the French law violated their right to religion guaranteed under the ICCPR and aggrieved by it, the two women approached the UNHRC. In 2018, the Committee, in its two landmark decisions, Miriana Hebbadj v. France and Sonia Yaker v. France, decided that the French Burqa ban was indeed in violation of the right to freedom of religion (Article 18) and the right to equality (Article 26) of the ICCPR.

Based on these decisions and the general comment, it is fairly settled that wearing a burqa or full face covering is protected as a right to religion under the IHRL. Hence, the UNHRC found the French law to be in violation of both gender equality and religious freedom. There is no doubt that banning the wearing of Burqa/Hijab in colleges is a restriction of Muslim women’s right to religion as protected under the IHRL.

The reasons quoted by France – equality, fraternity and public order. And all these three reasons are inadequate in IHRL. Even if the intention of the law was equality, its effect is clearly discriminatory against both women and a religious minority. It penalises Muslim women disproportionately more than it does men and women of other religions, and even Muslim men. In fact, this exclusion of Muslim girls from sport is gendered Islamophobia masquerading as a protect to guard secularism within France.

Sources : Reuters , Thewire, France24, Aljazeera

Read more from Shafaqna:

Video: French Muslim women campaign against Hijab ban in sports

Related posts

Two Muslim women hit by car in east London

nasibeh yazdani

Doha’s Al-Mujadilah Mosque exclusively for women

nasibeh yazdani

France: Increasing Islamophobia forces Muslim women to immigration

leila yazdani

England: Two Muslim women hit by car in Walthamstow

nasibeh yazdani

World Hijab Day: A tool to foster tolerance

nasibeh yazdani

France: Abaya ban revives painful memories for Muslim women

asadian

Leave a Comment