SWISS COURT SUPPORT SCHOOL HIJAB

Burn, 21 Muharram 1436/14 November 2014 (MINA) – A Swiss court has overturned a ban imposed earlier by a school in the northeastern canton of Saint Gallen on Islamic hijab worn by a 13-year-old girl, labeling the ban as unjustified.

The court said the ban on hijab was “disproportionate”, Onislam quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting, Friday.

The decision was issued by the court in Saint Gallen canton against the ban imposed on hijab or Islamic headscarf.

The judge agreed with the argument of the girl’s lawyer who saw the ban as contradicting with freedom of religion, protected by federal and cantonal law, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court added that there was no evidence that wearing hijab caused any problems in the school or affected the teen’s integration in the class.

Such a ban would only be justified if it became “a serious threat to the religious peace,” the court said.

For Muslims, hijab is not a symbol, but rather an obligatory dress code for Muslim women.

According to the CIA Factbook, Switzerland is home to some 400,000 Muslims, representing 5 percent of the country’s nearly eight million people.

Niqab Ban

On the same day, the federal government upheld the right of the canton of Ticino to forbid citizens in public from wearing face-veil, such as niqab or burqa.

“We would accept this because for us peace is extraordinarily important,” Hisham Maizar, president of the umbrella group for Islamic organizations in Switzerland is quoted as saying by broadcaster SRF.

Voters in the canton approved the ban in September 2013 with the support of the cantonal government.

The federal cabinet said the decision was in line with the European Court of Human Rights, which earlier ruled that a veil ban in France was compatible with freedom of religion and non-discrimination.

The Ticino ban does not extend to headscarves.

The federal decision has emboldened a member of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, MP Walter Wobmann to seek a popular initiative for a national ban on head veils, SDA said.

This is the first time that such a ban has been passed in a Swiss canton.

An earlier attempt to obtain a nationwide ban on the Muslim face-veil in public places was rejected by Swiss parliament in 2012.

The wearing of face-veil has been the focus of growing debate in the West in recent years.

Several European countries as France, Belgium and the Netherland have banned the outfit.

While hijab is an obligatory code of dress for Muslim women, the majority of Muslim scholars agree that a woman is not obliged to wear the face veil.

Scholars believe it is up to women to decide whether to take on the veil or burka, a loose outfit covering the whole body from head to toe and wore by some Muslim women.(T/P008/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)