‘Muslim girls and ladies who put on the hijab will need to have equal rights to take part in cultural and sporting life,’ UN consultants say.
United Nations rights consultants have slammed selections in France barring girls and ladies who put on the Muslim headband from sports activities competitions as “discriminatory”, demanding they be reversed.
France invoked its strict guidelines on secularism to ban its athletes from sporting spiritual symbols, together with the hijab, throughout the Paris 2024 Olympics.
France’s soccer and basketball federations have additionally opted to exclude gamers sporting the headband from competitions, together with on the beginner stage.
These selections “are disproportionate and discriminatory, and infringe on their rights [of French athletes] to freely manifest their identification, their faith or perception in non-public and in public, and to participate in cultural life,” stated the assertion, signed by eight unbiased UN consultants, issued on Monday.
“Muslim girls and ladies who put on the hijab will need to have equal rights to take part in cultural and sporting life, and to participate in all points of French society of which they’re a component,” they stated.
The assertion was signed by the UN particular rapporteurs on cultural rights, on minority points, and on freedom of faith and perception, and members of the UN working group on discrimination towards girls and ladies.
They’re unbiased consultants appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, however who don’t converse on behalf of the UN.
France’s legal guidelines on secularism are meant to maintain the state impartial in spiritual issues, whereas guaranteeing residents the best to freely practise their faith.
Amongst different issues, they prohibit pupils and academics in faculties in addition to civil servants from sporting “ostentatious” spiritual symbols.
However the consultants insisted that “the neutrality and secular nature of the state are usually not legit grounds for imposing restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of faith or perception.”
“Any limitations of those freedoms should be proportionate, needed to achieve one of many goals acknowledged in worldwide regulation [safety, health and public order, the rights and freedoms of others], and justified by details… and never by presumptions, assumptions or prejudices,” they stated.
“In a context of intolerance and robust stigmatisation of girls and ladies who select to put on the hijab, France should take all measures at its disposal to guard them, to safeguard their rights, and to advertise equality and mutual respect for cultural range.”
The French contingent on the residence Olympics in Paris didn’t embody any hijab-wearing athletes. Nevertheless, the Worldwide Olympic Committee allowed members to put on the hijab within the athletes’ village.
