A 32-year-old woman, Hind Ahmas, has been sentenced 15 days of 'citizenship service' after she was caught wearing a full-face veil in public and refused to remove it.

"/> A 32-year-old woman, Hind Ahmas, has been sentenced 15 days of 'citizenship service' after she was caught wearing a full-face veil in public and refused to remove it.

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Woman risks jail for wearing full veil in France

A 32-year-old woman, Hind Ahmas, has been sentenced 15 days of 'citizenship service' after she was caught wearing a full-face veil in public and refused to remove it.

Published: 13 December 2011 11:28 CET

Hind Ahmas says she will not obey the court’s ruling and refuses to remove her veil. She risks a two-year prison sentence and a €30,000 fine, if she does not perform her citizenship service, which includes classes on French Republican values, Le Figaro reports.

Ahmas heard her sentence on the pavement in front of the courthouse in Paris because she refused to remove her veil to face the judges.

Her lawyer Gilles Devers says Ahmas is going to appeal and said that the French ban on the veil was illegal, AFP reports.

The judge however insists her lawyer cannot appeal her decision because it is not a fine.

Ahmas had already been fined €120 in September for wearing a full-face veil in public in Meaux east of Paris.

Another woman, Kenza Drider, who was also wearing the full-face veil, was at the trial. She says she is running for the presidential election and wants to repeal France’s ban on the veil.

Ahmas and her pressure group, Don’t Touch my Constitution, insist France does not respect their rights and say they want to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights to see the ban overturned.

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France sets up 'office of laïcité' to defend its secular ideals

Photo: AFP

Prime minister Jean Castex announced on Thursday the creation of a new inter-ministerial committee on secularism which will eventually evolve into the bureau de la laïcité.

Its role will be to provide extra training to state employees on exactly what laïcité is and what it does and does not allow, and to rule on disputes over the application of the principle of state secularism.

The creation of the office comes as a new bill aimed at ‘strengthening republican principles’ and cracking down on extremism makes its way through parliament.

READ ALSO What is actually contained in France’s new law against Islamic extremism

A key principle of the French state since its adoption in 1905, laïcité is poorly understood outside France, but the ideas of secularism are also often misunderstood – sometimes deliberately for political reasons – inside the country as well.

The basic principle of the law is that everyone in France is free to follow whatever religion they choose, but that the French state itself remains strictly neutral and religion plays no part in the business of the state.

This rules out, for example, Christmas nativity scenes in town halls or prayers in schools. It also means that agents of the state – anyone on the public payroll – cannot display any signs of their religion such as wearing the Muslim headscarf while at work, while religious symbols cannot be displayed in state buildings including schools.

It does not, however, extend to private businesses – so shops can and do put up Christmas decorations – or public spaces – so that wearing a Muslim scarf on the street or in a shop is perfectly legal.

Nevertheless, the lack of a simple, concise definition means that many people remain confused about the principle.

This is not helped by some deliberate distortions of the principle for political reasons, where it is particularly used to attack Muslim women.

READ ALSO What does laïcité really mean in France?

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