EU Court Rules in Favour of Burqa Ban in Belgium

European Court of Human Rights upholds Belgian ban on Islamic full-face veil.

Brussels, 18 Shawwal 1438/12 July 2017 (MINA) – The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that the ban on the burqa in Belgium does not violate human rights of individuals.

The Strasbourg-based court in a press release said the ban did not violate Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In 2011, Belgium introduced legislation banning clothing including the burqa that covers the face in public.

The case against the ban was filed in 2013 by two applicants, Samia Belcacemi (a Belgian national) and Yamina Oussar (a Moroccan national), who live in Belgium.

The two Muslim women had argued that their privacy, freedom of faith and freedom of speech, three fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the European treaty on human rights, were being violated by the ban.

The court said that by adopting the law in question, “the Belgian State had sought to respond to a practice that it considered to be incompatible in Belgian society.

“The question whether the full-face veil was to be accepted in the Belgian public sphere was thus a choice of society,” it said.

In 2014, the same court also ruled in favour of a similar burqa ban in France.

The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. (T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)