After the highest court of France declared that the government’s contentious abaya ban is lawful, rejecting an appeal by Muslim Rights Action (SDM), the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is urging the US State Department to condemn the French government’s decisions prohibiting the hijab and abaya.
CAIR, America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, requesting that he strongly condemn the French government for prohibiting its own citizens from wearing the hijab, or Islamic head scarves, at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“By confronting France on the grave issue of Islamophobia and its assault on Muslim religious liberties,” CAIR asserted, “the United States can better champion a more inclusive and equitable French society that respects the rights and practices of all its citizens, including those with deeply-held religious convictions.”
SDM’s lawyer Vincent Brengarth criticized the court’s shallow decision in June upholding the ban of abayas in public schools, stating that restrictions on the abaya and other women’s religious garments violate “several fundamental freedoms.”
The State Council, France’s highest court for complaints against public authorities, said on September 7 that it had rejected a request for an injunction against the abaya ban. It claimed that the ban does not cause “serious or obviously illegal harm to the respect for personal lives, freedom of religion, the right to education, the well-being of children or the principle of non-discrimination.”