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Paris police ban hijab protest football match outside parliament

Paris police have banned what they describe as a ‘demonstration’ in which a group of women intended to play football outside the French parliament while wearing the Muslim headscarf.

Published: 9 February 2022 12:17 CET
Paris police ban hijab protest football match outside parliament
Photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP

Wednesday’s event – a game of football on the esplanade des Invalides, next to the Palais Bourbon which houses the National Assembly – was planned by Les Hijabeuses, a group of Muslim women, to protest against an amendment to a sports bill making its way through Parliament that would prohibit the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols while participating in sporting events.

The match was timed to coincide with the bill – on the democratisation of sport – returning to the Assembly after the contentious amendment was added in the Senate at an earlier reading.

READ ALSO OPINION: Muslim headscarves are legal in France, so why the moral panic about a sports hijab?

“It is feared that this demonstration will attract, in addition to those who support it, people hostile to the cause,” the Préfecture de Police said in a statement published on Twitter.

The ban on the rally was justified, “both for the safety of the demonstrators themselves and for the maintenance of public order,” it added.

The group is, however, not giving up without a fight. “We have obviously taken the case to court to challenge this arbitrary, unfair and completely disproportionate, act” said the collective on Twitter after the announcement by the Prefecture of Police.

READ ALSO ‘My body, my choice’ – French Muslim women speak out about headscarves

“A hearing will take place tomorrow morning, and we hope that the Prefecture will be brought to reconsider this ban. On our side, we will play whatever happens. Surely elsewhere … but we will play,” said the collective on the social network.

Les Hijabeuses staged a similar demonstration in front of the Senate last week. They were moved on by gendarmes.

A week previously, senators had added an amendment prohibiting the wearing of “conspicuous religious symbols” during a sports competition, which is not supported by the government and was promptly removed by MPs in the parliament.

The bill is due before the Assembly again on Wednesday, before its final readings on February 16th.

The French Football Federation still prohibits the wearing of the headscarf within its championships, despite the fact that Fifa authorised it in 2014.

Due to France’s laws of laïcité (secularism) conspicuous religious garments such as the hijab are banned in government buildings such as schools or local government officers, while public servants such as police officers are banned from wearing them while on duty.

The full-face veil is banned in all public spaces in France.

READ ALSO What does laïcité really mean in France?

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POLITICS

France’s Uyghurs say Xi visit a ‘slap’ from Macron

Uyghurs in France on Friday said President Emmanuel Macron welcoming his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping next week was tantamount to "slapping" them.

Published: 4 May 2024 15:23 CEST
France's Uyghurs say Xi visit a 'slap' from Macron

Xi is due to make a state visit to France on Monday and Tuesday.

Dilnur Reyhan, the founder of the European Uyghur Institute and a French national, said she and others were “angry” the Chinese leader was visiting.

“For the Uyghur people — and in particular for French Uyghurs — it’s a slap from our president, Emmanuel Macron,” she said, describing the Chinese leader as “the executioner of the Uyghur people”.

Beijing stands accused of incarcerating more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention facilities across the Xinjiang region.

Campaigners and Uyghurs overseas have said an array of abuses take place inside the facilities, including torture, forced labour, forced sterilisation and political indoctrination.

A UN report last year detailed “credible” evidence of torture, forced medical treatment and sexual or gender-based violence — as well as forced labour — in the region.

But it stopped short of labelling Beijing’s actions a “genocide”, as the United States and some other Western lawmakers have done.

Beijing consistently denies abuses and claims the allegations are part of a deliberate smear campaign to contain its development.

It says it is running vocational training centres in Xinjiang which have helped to combat extremism and enhance development.

Standing beside Reyhan at a press conference in Paris, Gulbahar Haitiwaji, who presented herself as having spent three years in a detention camp, said she was “disappointed”.

“I am asking the president to bring up the issue of the camps with China and to firmly demand they be shut down,” she said.

Human Rights Watch on Friday urged Macron during the visit to “lay out consequences for the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity and deepening repression”.

“Respect for human rights has severely deteriorated under Xi Jinping’s rule,” it said.

“His government has committed crimes against humanity… against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, adopted draconian legislation that has erased Hong Kong’s freedoms, and intensified repression of government critics across the country.”

“President Macron should make it clear to Xi Jinping that Beijing’s crimes against humanity come with consequences for China’s relations with France,” said Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch

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