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2020, International Journal of Human Rights
Recently there has been a rise in state surveillance of racialized persons, immigrants, and religious minorities. While there is abundant literature that discusses the discourses of security and concerns over international terrorism, as well as acculturation and accommodation, little is known about how some of these public policies and practices intersect with human rights, health, and wellbeing. This paper seeks to illuminate the health and human rights consequences of policies about the hijab and niqab, including bans on religious symbols in public workplaces. This work is guided by interdisciplinary health, social justice, and anti-racism frameworks, and it explores the human rights concerns of policies that may be used to justify surveillance and control over racialized people, migrants, and their cultural practices. Various countries have increasingly expanded their surveillance of immigrant people from South Asia and the Middle East, especially Arabs, Central and South Asians, Africans, and Muslims. These groups have been experiencing racism at their places of worship, borders, ports of entry, and at airports . Many governments, including the provincial government of Quebec from within Canada, have introduced policy interventions aimed at persons displaying religious symbols, which I argue have undermined the human rights and well-being of affected groups.
Dislike among European publics for the Islamic full veil and the desire to ban it are often ascribed to nativist "Islamophobia." This article questions that assumption. It argues that, in political terms, the wearing of the burqa and niqab is inconsistent with Western norms of equality, the backbone of the citizenship ideal; and that, in social terms, the full veil erects a partition to interpersonal understanding and reciprocity. While the constitutional duty to protect religious freedom is a good argument in favor of tolerating the full veil, the practice of wearing it is at the edge of solidarity and injurious to the democratic public sphere.
The paper is aimed at advising governments in Europe on the compatibility with draft laws banning the wearing of burqa/niqab in public spaces with the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion).
2020 •
Several countries have imposed bans on the wearing of face veils, a controversial option considered in Bill 94 by the province of Quebec in 2010. This paper examines non-Muslim women's support for the acceptability of the niqab in public spaces. Analysing the 2010 Quebec Women's Political Participation Survey, we find that key feminist arguments -that wearing the niqab is a woman's free choice, a matter of freedom of religion and a visible symbol of women's oppression -are important drivers of opinion. Their role in shaping opinion, however, is complex and mirrors divisions among feminist groups in the province. Additional attitudinal drivers include generation, exposure to the practice and openness to immigration. Equally important, our findings suggest that being a member of a racial minority, feelings of cultural insecurity and religiosity are of little consequence for thinking on the issue.
This paper critically assesses the implications of the French veil ban and its impact upon veiled Muslim women in the West and Middle East where the face veil is an obligation rather than a choice for liberation. Using legislation to ban the veil has serious human rights implications, particularly for freedom of expression and freedom of religion. In relation to the latter, this paper shall attempt to distinguish how far the veil is a religious concept or a cultural one on pages 5-9. The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the reasons that were used as justifications for the French ban: communication, security, equality and the principle of living together. This paper will argue that three out of four of these justifications are without any “juridical basis”[ Stated by the State Council, yet the government acted despite a consultative ruling by the SC. ] This shall be considered on pages 9-19. This paper is premised on three lines of argument. Firstly, that the ban cannot be justified on security grounds. Secondly, that restricting those who freely choose to wear the veil has serious human rights implications, namely freedom of expression and religion. Thirdly, that the French have gone against their own principle of “vivre ensemble”, by leaving women with no choice but to depart from society. I acknowledge that there are women right here in our very country as well as across the globe that are faced with oppression and forced to wear the veil and this paper consider this also. However, I conclude that the underlying reason for banning the veil is to do with xenophobia rather than protecting fundamental values and freedoms.
Monitor: Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Ljubljana: ISH XIII/1, 2011 (171-206)
Beyond the Garment: the Muslim Veil as a Demarcation LineThis paper deals with the headscarf issue in Europe, which ‘flared up’ the public arenas of many European countries during the past two decades, provoking debates, massive media attention, policy measures, riots, violence, and xenophobic public speech. Herein it is argued that the Islamic head-covering garments have nowadays become, within the public arena, performative modes of social existence that question the dominant majoritarian social codes. The meanings and performatives of the headscarf go beyond Islam and enter the sphere of social communication between different world views and political stances. The logic of existence of this social communication reveals that Muslims living in Europe take up subcultural strategies to question hegemonic discourses and policies. Keywords: head-covering, Muslims, performative, subculture, secularity
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