This is not the first time that the debate on the wearing of the veil in sport has arisen in France, especially after the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the question has been asked for many years, but now, the hijab has been ordered to be banned. “discriminatory” of UN experts, who are now calling for the decision to be reversed, reports The Parisian.
Three UN special rapporteurs, as well as the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls, ordered, in a statement released on Monday, that “Muslim girls and women who wear the hijab must have the same right to participate in cultural and sporting life, and to participate in all aspects of French society of which they are a part”.
For them, the decisions of the French football and basketball federations to exclude hijab-wearing players from competitions “disproportionate and discriminatory”. They also attacked the government’s decision to prevent French athletes wearing the hijab from representing France during the Paris Olympics, believing that these measures “violating their rights to freely manifest their identity, religion or belief in private and in public”.
A “context of intolerance”
In fact, the sportswomen selected for the French team are not authorized to wear the veil during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Ministry of Sports announced in a press release in June 2024 that “During the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the wearing of signs or clothes of a religious nature is forbidden for members of the French team to apply the principle of neutrality” and in the name of respecting the principle of “secularism”.
For independent UN experts, who are mandated by the Human Rights Council and who do not speak for the organization, “State neutrality and secularism are not legitimate grounds for imposing restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief”. The latter concludes by recalling the “context of intolerance and strong stigmatization towards women and girls who choose to wear the hijab”ordered France to take “all measures available to it to protect them, ensure their rights and promote equality and mutual respect for cultural diversity”.