(Credit: Engin Akyurt/Pixabay)
Nadine Osman
The UN Human Rights Committee ruled on August 3 that France discriminated against a Muslim woman who was barred from attending vocational training in a public school while wearing her hijab in 2010.
Naima Mezhoud was due to commence training as a management assistant at a course held at a state high school, where teenagers are prohibited by law from wearing the hijab.
When Mezhoud, now 45, arrived at the school on the northern outskirts of Paris, the head teacher barred her entry, according to a UN document.
In 2004, France banned students from wearing hijabs in state schools. As a student in higher education, Mezhoud argued that the law did not apply to her.
‘The committee concludes that the refusal to allow (Mezhoud) to participate in the training while wearing her headscarf constitutes a gender- and religious-based act of discrimination,’ the UN Human Rights Committee determined.
France has six months to compensate Mezhoud and offer her a vocational course if she still wishes. The country also must take steps to ensure similar violations of international law will not happen again.
However, the Collective against Islamophobia in Europe (CCIE) does not expect France to implement the recommendations.
“The French State remains deaf to these international analyses and has difficulty respecting the commitment it made by signing the Pact relating to civil and political rights. By not respecting this Pact, the government is once again showing, under the gaze of international observers, the contempt it has for the rule of law and fundamental freedoms,” said a CCIE spokesperson.
Freedom law expert Nicolas Hervieu of the Paris Institute of Political Studies also said that, according to legal precedent, it was unlikely that France would comply with the committee’s decision.
France is home to one of Europe’s largest Muslim minorities. For years, the country has implemented laws designed to protect its strict form of secularism, known as “laicité,” which President Emmanuel Macron has said is under threat from “Islamism.”
Some human rights groups allege those laws have targeted Muslims and chipped away at democratic protections, leaving them vulnerable to abuse. The committee said France had breached articles 18 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on Religious Freedom.
Mezhoud’s lawyer, Sefen Guez Guez, argued that international human-rights institutions were critical of France’s policies regarding Islam. “French institutions will have to comply with the UN decision,” he added.
