Burqa Ban Research Articles

Religious Secularism: Muslim Perception and the Effects of France and Belgium's Niqab and Burqa Prohibition

This article examines how the Muslim community perceives religious secularism in France and Belgium. Second, to explore the negative and positive impacts of the niqab and burqa ban policy on the perception of the Muslim community in France and Belgium. This article uses a descriptive qualitative research method (Field Research) with a participatory approach. Namely, the researcher conducted direct observations in France (Cannes, Marseille, and Dunkerque) and Belgium (Saint-Nicolas and Bouge) on 19-26 February 2022. The data collection techniques in this article are primary data and secondary data. Preliminary data includes field observations, interviews, and documentation. Meanwhile, secondary data includes books, scientific articles, and popular articles still relevant to this research. Then, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with informants or sources, namely Muslim women in Belgium and France. Furthermore, the documentation technique uses a theoretical reference source referring to Stephen P. Robbins' version of perception theory. The findings in this article are the perceptions of the Muslim community, which has been known above. The views of the Muslim community in France and Belgium towards religious secularism in terms of the prohibition of wearing the Niqab and Burqa vary greatly. These very varied views or perceptions are influenced by the principles, experiences, knowledge, attitudes, social conditions, surrounding environment, and personalities of those (Muslim communities) who live in France and Belgium. The negative impacts are more dominant, and this may worsen the social and economic conditions of Muslim communities.

The French Burqa Ban: a Muslim Woman’s ‘Life’ Under the Living Together Principle

The burqa and the right to choice especially for Muslim women has been one of the most controversial issues in the world in recent times. This has been fueled by Islamophobic rhetoric in an increasingly polarized world where liberal minded people often find themselves in a fix. Such a fix exists because of the repelling nature of both the vehement anti burqa and the staunch pro burqa discourse. The French imposing a complete ban on the veil adds more fuel to this cultural fire. The main aim of this paper is to understand the burqa controversy with specific focus on France and analyzing how the ECHR’s judgment upholding the French Burqa ban is endorsing a half-baked majoritarian law which undoes feminist principles and belittles veiled women and their autonomy in France.

The regulation of religion in public spaces

AbstractA number of controversial aspects of the relationship between religion and the state are located in public space. Although burqa bans, the Swiss minaret ban, and duties to display crucifixes on public buildings are different in various ways, it is significant that they all take place in this particular type of location. However, when normative political theorists have addressed these issues, they have rarely paid sufficient attention to their spatial location, and, as a result, their analyses are lacking a vital dimension. This article shows what can go wrong when these normative analyses do not refer to an account of public space. It then indicates what part of a suitable account would look like by sketching four of its essential elements, referred to as the definition, distinctiveness, differentiation, and dynamism of public space. It is argued that normative political theorists should draw on aspects of such an account in order to achieve a more sophisticated understanding of issues concerning religion in public spaces, as well as to reach more securely grounded normative conclusions about them.

The Burqa Ban, Islamophobia, and the Effects of Racial “Othering” in Australian Political Discourses

Racism and “othering” of ethnicities is an enduring feature of Western politics. In Australia, Senator Pauline Hanson is well known for radical conservative political opinions, some of which are regarded by her critics as racist. One of her most notorious anti‐Muslim campaigns came in the form of her support for a burqa ban, with engagement in constant media commentary and a publicity stunt in 2017 in which she wore a burqa into the Federal Senate Chamber. This article analyses the public discourse surrounding Hanson's call for a burqa ban, focusing on Twitter as an online media forum for the sharing and dissemination of political beliefs. In analysing Twitter posts and responses linked to Hanson's Twitter handle referring to #burqaban and related terms between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2018, clear themes depicting orientalism, dualism, and Islamophobia emerge. I argue that the propagation of these political discourses perpetuates a perception of the burqa as epitomising fear of dangerous and harmful mischaracterisations of Australian Muslims. The normalisation and continued utilisation of orientalist, dualist, and Islamophobic themes in political and public discourse, linked with the political profile and positional authority of Pauline Hanson, legitimises calls for impositions on Muslims' religious freedoms, manifesting in debates such as the “burqa ban”.

Gendernativism and Liberal Subjecthood: The Cases of Forced Marriage and the Burqa Ban in Switzerland

AbstractIdeas of gender equality and women’s rights have come to play a crucial role in national politics of belonging and Othering, in Europe and beyond. Based on two case studies in Switzerland, we introduce the concept of gendernativism. We consider gendernativism as a particular configuration of boundary making between supposedly unfree migrant (descendant) and Muslim women and free Swiss/Europeans which is anchored in a nativist underpinning of membership. We argue that this dichotomy (re)produces an illiberal state and is a powerful means of an intersectional, gendered, migranticized, and racialized exclusion based on nativist grounds.

What Happened to ‘Vivre Ensemble?’: Developments after SAS v France

Abstract In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights found that France’s prohibition on women wearing the full face veil did not violate Article 9. In doing so, it accepted that the ban was necessary in order to achieve ‘vivre ensemble’ or ‘living together’. The use of the concept was controversial and the response at the time was mostly critical. This article examines when and in what ways the Court has used vivre ensemble since that decision. It considers the arguments made by member states and applicants and the Court’s reasoning in later cases on the face veil and other Islamic clothing, as well examining reference to vivre ensemble by the Court in other contexts. It finds that the full face veil is constructed as fundamentally different to other forms of religious clothing and there is little reliance on the concept other than in the ‘burqa ban’ cases

The Sociability Argument for the Burqa Ban: A Qualified Defence

Over the past decade, countries such as France, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Latvia, and Bulgaria have banned face-coverings from public spaces. These bans are popularly known as ‘burqa bans’ as they seem to have been drafted with the aim of preventing people from wearing burqas and niqabs specifically. The scholarly response to these bans has been overwhelmingly negative, with several lawyers and philosophers arguing that they violate the human right to freedom of religion. While this article shares some of the concerns that have been raised, it argues that banning face-coverings in public is morally justified under certain conditions with the exception of facemasks that are necessary for the containment of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. The reason for this is that those who publicly cover their face make it very difficult for other members of society to socially interact with them, especially for those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, which is problematic in an age where many people are chronically lonely or at risk of becoming chronically lonely. As such, this article can be understood as a more elaborate, and arguably more sophisticated, defence of the justification that France offered for its face-covering ban before the European Court of Human Rights, namely that covering one’s face undermines the conditions for ‘living together’.

Opposing Laws with Religious Reasons

Opposing Laws with Religious Reasons

Margin of Appreciation in Pursuit of Pluralism? Critical Remarks on the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights on the ‘Burqa Bans’

Abstract In 2014 and 2017, the European Court of Human Rights, respectively, upheld France’s and Belgium’s general bans on wearing face-covering veils in public. Whereas both the acceptance of ensuring the minimum conditions for ‘living together’ as a legitimate aim and the recognition of a wide margin of appreciation appear to demonstrate a pluralistic approach taken by the Court, this article examines the Court’s understanding and application of the principle of pluralism in its reasoning and, in this way, explores why and how the Court’s pluralistic view has led to an anti-pluralistic outcome. It purports to show that it was precisely a majoritarian conception of pluralism that has led the Court to make decisions to the disadvantage of minorities. Moreover, it illustrates how the European multilevel system of human rights protection should be developed in support of the realisation of pluralism.

'Act Normal or Leave': When Law and Culture Collide

“Act normal or leave” wrote the Prime Minister of the Netherlands before the 2017 elections in an open letter published on-line and in full-page newspaper advertisements. This article examines the idea of legislating ‘normal’ and what this means in a diverse world. I specifically explore laws that criminalize dress in Europe - burqa bans that can even carry jail time for women who cover their face in public. I look at these laws as forced assimilation and as simply a ‘Muslim ban.’ Not only is forced assimilation ineffective, it is a national security threat. In upholding and justifying these laws, I question whether the European Court of Human Rights has created a dangerous new right of the majority not to be offended. Although I argue against these criminal laws, I also consider the issue of what duty to integrate newcomers do have to a host country where they are living and ways in which pop culture can help this integration take place. I then analogize local laws in the United States that criminalize ‘saggy pants.’ In Louisiana, a young man died after being chased by police for wearing saggy pants. Although obvious differences, these laws share the flaw of using the force of law against a minority group by criminalizing dress. The COVID-19 pandemic and recent laws in Europe requiring face masks, but still criminalizing burqas, highlight the injustice.

Do burqa bans make us safer? Veil prohibitions and terrorism in Europe

ABSTRACT Over the past decade, several European states have moved to ban or restrict the wearing of Islamic face veils. Supporters of these bans maintain that they are necessary to ensure national security and cultural assimilation. Opponents, on the other hand, argue that prohibitions on the veil unjustly restrict the religious liberty of Muslim women. Interestingly, though, despite the controversy surrounding restrictions and bans on the veil and conflicting expectations on the effects of these limitations, little research has attempted to rigorously analyze their effect on radicalization. We seek to address this gap through a statistical analysis of the effects of these laws on Islamist terrorism in the states of Europe. We find that states that enforce veil bans are indeed statistically much more likely to experience more and more lethal Islamist terrorist attacks than countries where such laws do not exist.

Minority Rights, Freedom of Religion and the Issue of Burqa

General stance of the Human Rights discourse is that minorities are subjected to discriminations, they are treated as second class citizens by the majority, and, hence, their rights are specially to be protected. Religious minorities encounter typical problems in practicing and observing their religions and cultures. Religious minorities in European countries in which secular and liberal democratic form of governments are in place enjoy their rights comparatively better is a fact not much contested. However, the burqa ban in France in 2010 followed by Belgium and many other European countries provides a testing field of religious minority rights and religious freedom under secular and liberal democratic states. This essay tries to explore how two of the founding stones of Human Rights discourse namely equality and non-discrimination are protected or breached with the ban of burqa. Views pro and against are evaluated on the basis of various theories and concepts. UN declarations and conventions as well as European conventions were readily consulted for authorization, verification and validation of facts. ECtHR’s remarks on the validity of the ban are tested against human rights discourse, equality and non-discrimination in particular. The essay opens an avenue for discussion of different views about the ban from different perspectives. Key Words: Religious minority, substantive equality, non-discrimination, public good & safety, tolerance, reciprocity, pluralism.

A Political Economy of Social Discrimination

From burqa ban to minaret ban, from right to detain suspected illegal immigrants to restricting the help to migrants, the number of social laws specifically targeting a tiny proportion of citizens has raised in recent years across Western democracies. These symbolic policies, we show, are far from being innocuous: they can have far reaching consequences for large parts of the population. By raising the salience of certain social traits (e.g., Muslim identity) these laws can create a labour market loaded in favor of the majority (e.g., the non-Muslims), yielding higher unemployment rates, higher spells for minority citizens, and lower wages. These deleterious effects arise even absent any form of bias against, or uncertainty about, minority workers. Instead they are fully driven by social expectations about behavior and are best understood as the result of \textit{social discrimination}. Importantly, we establish conditions under which a plurality of the citizenry demands the implementation of symbolic policies anticipating their labor market consequences. We further highlight that the implementation of symbolic policies is always associated with less redistribution and can be coupled with lower tax rates. We discuss several policy recommendations to limit the possibility of social discrimination arising.

The Judicial Politics of Burqa Bans in Belgium and Spain—Socio-Legal Field Dynamics and the Standardization of Justificatory Repertoires

The Judicial Politics of Burqa Bans in Belgium and Spain—Socio-Legal Field Dynamics and the Standardization of Justificatory Repertoires

The politics of covering the face: from the ‘burqa ban’ to the facekini

In 2009, the French government established a commission to study the controversial practice among a minority of Muslim women of wearing the ‘voile integral’ (full-face veil). This led to the passage of a law the following year—widely referred to in the media as the ‘burqa ban’—designed to curtail what many lawmakers had described as a discriminatory, oppressive, and gendered practice that contravened the French values of liberty, equality, and brotherhood. The actual text of the law, however, simply banned citizens and visitors from covering their faces in public. As the law went into effect, the rhetoric shifted from symbolism to security. Five years later, linguistic confusion and increased concerns about security led to bans on the ‘burqini,’ a full-body swimsuit that does not cover the face. A few journalists, questioning the underlying rationale for the bans, compared the burqini to the ‘facekini,’ a face-covering swim garment from China invented in 2004. Although Chinese men and women wear the facekini for various reasons (primarily for protection from jellyfish and from tanning), it does not have any religious or political significance.

The 2018 Danish “Burqa Ban”: Joining a European Trend and Sending a National Message

In May of 2018, the strategy of law-making was utilized in the Kingdom of Denmark to respond to or, more to the point, respond against full-face garments along the lines of a democratic and secular society in which values like transparency inform and guide interaction, dialogue, and communication. The new legal norm and measure, law L 219, does not refer expressly to the veil, nor to women, or to Islam. Nevertheless, the national Parliament in the Kingdom of Denmark proceeded on the basis of premises that reveal, upon scrutiny, why the particular provision that prohibits full-face veils is widely known and referred to as the “burqa ban”.Like the niqab, the burqa is a full-face veil. Numerically speaking, between 50 and 200 Muslim women wear such a veil, a fact that enters them into a minority within a minority statistics of 0.1 or 0.2 percent. However, to trivialize the burqa ban would be an error. This point applies to all sides, including the stakeholders who assumed the responsibility of drafting the new norm and measure. As the Danish legislators see things, law 219 is not an instance of “shooting sparrows with a cannon”. After this, the need to legislate appears to be an instance of following a trend in Europe and, at the same time, sending a message about the prevailing (Danish) ideology in contradistinction to “political Islam” that gives rise to unwanted phenomena like gender inequality, religious extremism, and terrorism. The authors of The 2018 Danish “Burqa Ban”: Joining a European Trend and Sending a National Messageattempt to give an in-depth account of the burqa ban and the political context for this, as provided by the negotiations that led up to the ban’s final adoption. One objective is to identify the various variables in the legal equation and, as another objective, capture the wider prescriptively-proscriptive direction of the Danish case, thereby also establishing a platform for further discussion, reflection, and response. (This part of the project – an intended component and outcome since the formulation of the original research task, labor division, and methodology – is published in the concurrent but separate article, The Burqa Ban: Legal Precursors for Denmark, American Experiences and Experiments, and Philosophical and Critical Examinations.)

The Legal Face of Populism: From the Classroom to the Courtroom

This article examines the normative-conceptual contrast between populism and radical democracy against the specific backdrop of two case-studies – the Fundamental British Values discourse in the UK and the French burqa ban. The goals of the article are twofold. First, to enrich the understanding of populism by analysing the interactions between populism, democracy and legal reasoning. Secondly, to offer ways of resisting a populist turn in legal reasoning. I will argue that law’s response to populism should embrace the ideals of radical democracy, namely deliberation and inclusiveness. In order to enhance deliberation and ensure its inclusiveness, I will submit that law should both retreat (from the classroom) and actively riposte against populism (in the courtroom).

Sex Quotas and Burkini Bans

This Essay recounts how feminist theorists and activists managed to write their ideals into the fabric of French law and culture, and how non-feminists began to appropriate those ideals. Parite, the 2000 law that requires half of all candidates for public office be women, saw French feminists first engineer a change in French universalism to respect sex difference; although not wholly successful, Parite advanced women’s political inclusion. Then, like a drop of water in a pond, these feminist ideas disappeared in plain sight: they became intrinsic to French state norms and public values. As they became woven into state norms, however, politicians began to use them to promote exclusions: first excluding Muslims from full participation in the Republic with veil and burqa bans; then supporting exclusions of sex and class with a corporate board quota (CBQ); most recently feminist ideas have been called upon to exclude French Muslims with proposed burkini bans.

How Much Veil Is Too Much Veil: On the Constitutionality and Advisability of Face Veil Bans for German Public School Students

With increasing cultural and religious diversity in Germany, a debate has emerged over the extent and limits of religious freedom in day-to-day life. While much controversy arose over whether public school teachers have the right to wear Islamic head coverings, students as private individuals are free to wear a headscarf at school if they wish. Yet, recent school and administrative court decisions suggest that the situation is different for students who wear niqab and Islamic face veils rather than just head veils. This Article contemplates whether niqab-wearing students can be expelled from public school under current German law. In addition, this Article addresses the constitutionality of law reform in this area especially considering the European Court of Human Rights' jurisprudence in the French context. The Article subsequently contemplates the advisability of such law reform while also drawing on the experiences of countries which have already enacted so-called burqa bans. As many countries are currently in the process of considering face veil bans, this Article may have relevance beyond the German context.

Institutionalising Islamophobia in Switzerland: The Burqa and Minaret Bans

This article aims to analyse the legislative processes leading to forbidding the wearing of burqas and the building of minarets in Switzerland by a postcolonial approach. In 2009, a federal popular initiative amended the Swiss constitution by forbidding the construction of minarets across the Helvetic territory. At the same time, several right-wing parties have attempted to pass a general prohibition of the burqa in public spaces since 2006. As a consequence, in 2013, the canton of Tessin has adopted an article prohibiting the face covering in public spaces and, in 2016, a popular initiative for the ban of the burqa in the whole country was launched. Starting from the content analysis of parliamentary debates and legislative documents concerning these bans, hegemonic and Eurocentric narratives excluding Muslims from the national community will be examined. The article also aims at casting a new light on the interlinkages between Swiss direct democracy, populism and Islamophobia. Furthermore, the exploitation of gender aimed at reinforcing Islamophobic narratives will be analysed. In both the minarets and the burqa ban cases, the image of women has played a crucial role in justifying the right-wing discourse on Muslims and Islam in Switzerland. On the one hand, the minarets ban has occupied the Swiss public space by a propaganda poster showing a woman wearing a burqa in front of minarets erected like missiles on top of a Swiss flag. On the other hand, the burqa ban articulated its campaign around the defence of freedom and women's right as Swiss traditional values. By deconstructing political and legislative arguments against burqa and minarets, the article shows how they have encouraged the legitimacy of public Islamophobic discourses and fostered a crystallised and undifferentiated representation of the Muslims' presence in Switzerland.