A man was arrested this Thursday night, in France, for alleged death threats against a director of a school in Clermont-Ferrant, after his daughter was prevented from entering the school for being dressed in an abaya, a garment that covers the female figure. body from head to toe.
The news was reported by French television BFM, which says police were called to the scene and the man was eventually detained.
Since the beginning of the week, at least 67 students have been prevented from entering schools for refusing to remove their abaya.
The Clermont-Ferrant incident led to increased police surveillance in the region.
The Council of State, France’s highest administrative judicial body, rejected this Thursday the appeal of a Muslim rights association, confirming the Government’s decision to ban the use of abayas in public schools, in force since Monday.
The court considered that the ban on this garment “does not represent a serious and manifestly illegal threat to a fundamental freedom.”
According to the French Council of State, this type of clothing “is part of a logic of religious affirmation”, as maintained by the Government of President Emmanuel Macron, which aims, with this type of laws, to combat religious fanaticism in a country in the last decade was plagued by attacks by extremist groups.
However, Action for Muslim Rights (ADM), the association complaining to the Council of State, maintains that this measure, applied in public primary and secondary schools, “stigmatizes” people of the Muslim religion (around five million in France) and “represents a threat to their fundamental rights at a social level”.
Shortly before the court decision was announced, ADM’s lawyer, Vincent Brengarth, stated that the abaya is “a social costume”, and not strictly religious, stating that, in the event of a contrary decision, the association would consider filing an appeal before the European Union. Court of Human Rights (ECHR) of Strasbourg.
This is not the first French law that seeks to ban clothing with religious connotations.
In 2004, clothing and symbols with which students “ostensibly manifest a religious affiliation” began to be prohibited in public education establishments. The target of the law was, at that time, above all the hijab (a veil that girls had to wear, according to Islamic law, to completely cover the head and neck).
Source: TSF
