The United Nations Human Rights Office recalled on Tuesday that limitations on religious demonstrations, including restrictions on clothing, should only apply “in very specific circumstances”, after France announced that it will ban abayas in schools.
Asked this Tuesday about the future French measure, announced on Sunday by the French Minister of Education, a cabinet spokeswoman pointed out that the UN cannot rule on a measure that has not yet been applied, but pointed out that measures of this type “should only may be established in limited circumstances, in particular for reasons of public order and safety, public health or morality”.
At a press conference in Geneva, at the Cabinet headquarters, Marta Hurtado recalled that international law “establishes that the measures adopted in the name of public order must be adequate, necessary and proportionate.”
“Achieving gender equality requires understanding the barriers that prevent women and girls from exercising their freedom of choice and creating environments that support their own decision-making, which does not just affect their choice of clothing,” the spokesperson stressed.
The French Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, announced this Sunday that the use of the abaya, an Islamic female tunic that covers the entire body, will be prohibited in educational establishments in the country, arguing that it is a religious garment contrary to secularism. of The French Political System.
According to the minister, “secularism is the freedom to emancipate oneself through school”, and going to school with an abaya is “a religious gesture”, despite the fact that the French Council for Muslim worship considers that this garment is not It is a Muslim religious symbol.
The French Government has a different understanding, which considers that the abaya is a garment that ostensibly denounces the religious affiliation of the person who wears it, therefore it must be protected by the law that prohibits, since 2004, the use of such symbols or garments in the schools.
The announcement about the abaya comes a few days after the publication, both in the French newspaper Le Figaro and in other media, of the conclusions of a report by state services that reveals an explosion of what they describe as “attacks on secularism”. in the schools. .
In the 2022-2023 school year, 4,710 complaints were filed for this matter, compared to 2,167, less than half, in the previous year, 2021-2022.
Source: TSF
