Netherlands’ Muslim athlete Sifan Hassan earned global acclaim after receiving her gold medal at the final 2024 Paris Olympic Games ceremony on Sunday, August 11, while wearing a hijab, in a defiant message again France’s controversial hijab ban.

Sifan delivered an incredible burst in the final 250 meters of the women’s marathon, clinching gold with an Olympic record time of 2:22:55.

The Dutch runner had already picked up two bronze medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m races at this Olympics.

The 31-year-old became the first athlete to medal in all three of the long-distance events at the same Olympic Games since Czech Emil Zatopek in 1952.

In previous Olympics, the men’s marathon has taken place on the final day with the medalists being presented on the podium at the closing ceremony. Paris was the first Olympics to boast gender parity, and the women’s race was run on the final day meaning the women were presented with their medals at the closing ceremony instead.

While receiving her gold medal in front of fellow athletes and a packed crowd at the Stade de France, Hassan wore a maroon-colored hijab.

The image of her stood on top of the podium struck a chord with fans after the host country controversially banned its own athletes from wearing head coverings at the Olympics.

Social Media Reactions

Viewers took to X to praise Hassan with one user saying: “Sifan Hassan wearing her hijab to her gold medal crowning ceremony for the women’s marathon, after France banned females from wearing hijabs at the 2024 games. She is so powerful. What a woman!”

Another said: “Congrats to Hassan! Love seeing the image of her wearing hijab in the host country that banned its own athletes from wearing it.”

A third user claimed it was an ‘unforgettable moment for her and the entire world’.

Similarly, Instagram users praised her, with one commenting: “The last medalist of Paris 2024 is a woman who chooses to wear hijab. The irony of that being in a host country that bans hijab in sport is incredible.”

A person wrote: “How ironic! A slap in the face of xenophobic France, which prevented its own athletes from participating because of their hijabs. And there stands Sifan proudly receiving her gold medal while wearing her hijab. FANTASTIC!”

“SUCH A STATEMENT WEARING HIJAB THANK YOU SISTER,” a netizen added.

Last September, French Minister of Sports Amelia Oudea-Castera announced athletes representing France would not be allowed to wear the hijab.

Last September, French Minister of Sports Amelie Oudea-Castera announced that athletes representing France at the Paris Games would not be allowed to wear the hijab in line with the country’s secularism principle and rules against displaying religious symbols at sporting events.

The rule was swiftly met with a strong wave of backlash, as The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation argued: “This ban contradicts the principles of equality, inclusivity, and respect for cultural diversity that the Olympics stand for.”

Amnesty International labeled the Hijab ban as “discriminatory” and “hypocritical,” a week before the Games commenced, and wrote: “French authorities made it emphatically and unashamedly clear… that their proclaimed efforts at improving gender equality and inclusivity in sports do not apply to one group of women and girls – those Muslim women and girls who wear religious head coverings.”

The human rights organization reportedly highlighted how banning the hijab was particularly jarring considering the 2024 Olympics was labeled as the first gender-equal Olympics – yet Muslim women were being discriminated against and singled out.

Source: MSN

Sweden’s Equality Ombudsman ruled Thursday in favor of a Muslim woman who complained that she faced discrimination for wearing a headscarf.

“An airline company that does not allow religious symbols and implements a uniform dress code policy dismissed a woman without employing her for wearing a headscarf, even though her job application was accepted, which is discrimination,” Lars Arrhenius said in a statement.

“Equality in the labor market and freedom of religion should not conflict with the interests of the employer. However, in such a balance, freedom of religion should prevail,” he added.

Consequently, it ordered the airline to pay the woman 150,000 Swedish Krona ($13,982) in compensation.

The woman filed a complaint with the Ombudsman last year on the grounds that she faced discrimination.

The wearing of the hijab has divided Europe for years and the issue came before the courts again in Belgium, after an employee of the eastern municipality of Ans was told she could not wear one while at work.

Lawyers for the woman, who performs her duties as head of office primarily without being in contact with users of the public service, argued that her right to freedom of religion had been infringed.

The Ans municipality changed its terms of employment to require its workers to observe strict neutrality by not wearing overt signs of religious or ideological belief after the woman was told not to wear a headscarf.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said authorities in member states had a margin of discretion in designing the neutrality of public service they intended to promote.

However, this objective must be pursued in a “consistent and systematic manner” and measures must be limited to what is strictly necessary. It was for a national court to verify that these requirements are complied with.

The CJEU ruled for the first time on women’s wearing of the headscarf in 2017, when the Luxembourg court found that the garments could be banned, but only as part of a general policy barring all religious and political symbols.

The judgment also stipulated that customers could simply not demand that workers remove headscarves if the company they were working for had no policy barring religious symbols.

The court has found in favor of banning headscarves on a number of occasions since then. In 2021 it threw out cases brought by two German Muslim women, a special needs childcare worker and a sales assistant in a chemist, both of whom were told to remove their headscarves after deciding to wear the garments on their return to work after parental leave.

The ban on religious and political symbols can be justified by the “employer’s desire to pursue a policy of political, philosophical and religious neutrality with regard to its customers or users, in order to take account of their legitimate wishes”, the court said in a statement at the time.

Critics have described the bans as attacks on religious freedoms that predominantly affect women. Human Rights Watch, the NGO, said bans on religious clothing and symbols for teachers and other civil servants in Germany led some Muslim women to give up teaching careers.

The ban on face coverings in France, meanwhile, led to fines for nearly 600 Muslim women in less than three years and France’s 2004 law banning the wearing of headscarves in schools kept some Muslim girls from finishing school.

In the UK there are no bans on headscarves or other religious symbols.

Continue reading at: The Independent

Fatemeh Anvari, a grade three teacher at the Chelsea Elementary School in Quebec, was offered a permanent position after working as a substitute teacher in the Western Quebec School Board for several months, CBC reported, adding that she had started her full-time position in fall.

Quebec’s Bill 21 bans most civil servants, including nurses, teachers and police officers, from wearing religious symbols such as turbans, headscarves, crosses and kippahs while on the job.

Critics argue that the law is a thinly-veiled attack centered on Muslim women who wear the headgear and it forces people to choose between their religion and their job.

Several court challenges have been filed against the discriminatory law, but the final ruling could take years.

Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, introduced by late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, guarantees equal rights for all Canadian citizens and allows them to challenge it since it is entrenched in the country’s Constitution.

Source: Daily Sabah

But the Luxembourg-based tribunal said in its ruling that courts in the bloc’s 27 member states should weigh up whether the ban corresponded to a “genuine need” on the part of the employer. They must also consider the rights and interests of the employee, including by taking into account national legislation on freedom of religion, it said.

The case was brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union by two women in Germany who chose to wear Islamic headscarves at their workplaces. One works as a special needs carer while the other is a sales assistant and cashier.

Source: The Associated Press

This comes six days after the Quebec Court of Appeal refused to suspend part of the law that forbids religious symbols such as hijabs, kippahs, crosses and turbans to be worn by most public servants while they are on the job. That includes teachers, nurses, police officers and bus drivers.

“We told Quebecers and Canadians that we would not stop our work until this unjust law has been defeated, said Mustafa Farooq, executive director of the NCCM, in a news release. “While teachers and other public sector workers are being forced out of their jobs, we will seek leave from the SCC (Supreme Court of Canada) to halt the serious and irreparable harm that Bill 21 causes.” Some Muslims have said they have been turned down for teaching positions because they refused to remove their hijabs.

The appeal court agreed that the new law caused harm to people, but the judges said they did not have the power to suspend the law, which was passed by publicly elected officials. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and an individual are also part of the court challenge. Farooq said other groups and individuals are supporting the challenge. “Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Catholics and folks who aren’t part of any faith tradition have been fighting with us, standing side by side,” he said. “And it is working. Support for Bill 21 in Quebec has dropped from close to 70% to only 48% as per the most recent polls. That’s massive.”

Quebec Premier François Legault insists the new law, passed this past summer, separates religion and state, promoting secularism, and that it has the support of a majority of Quebecers. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the state had no business telling citizens how to dress, he left the door open to federal intervention in the case. Legault warned the prime minister to stay out it.

Plaintiffs have to receive court permission to take an issue before the Supreme Court of Canada. But in this instance, that is considered a formality, and the case is expected to be heard in October 2020.

Source: Anadolu Agency

François Legault, the right-leaning Quebec premier, had called the bill a necessary measure to ensure the separation between religion and state in an abidingly secular province. It applies to Muslim head scarves, Jewish skullcaps, Sikh turbans and Catholic crosses, among other symbols.

Mr. Legault had also argued that the bill, which passed 73 to 35, was supported by a majority of Quebecers. Members of the opposition called Sunday a dark day for the province. Critics say that the legislation will effectively exclude religious Muslims, Sikhs and Jews from positions of authority in education and law enforcement, and that it runs roughshod over the freedom of religion and expression at the heart of Canada’s model of multiculturalism.

They also argue that it threatens to foment Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and fear of other minorities. Public officials, including several mayors and school boards in Montreal, have vowed to ignore the law, setting up a potential clash with the law enforcement authorities charged with enforcing it…The Quebec government has been seeking to tighten immigration, and has also raised the idea of testing immigrants to ensure they espouse Quebec’s values as a prerequisite for gaining permanent residency in the province.

Source: New York Times

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) made the decision after two Muslim women in Belgium and France were fired for refusing to remove their headscarves and took their cases to court.

It was the ECJ’s first ruling on wearing Islamic headscarves, or hijabs, at workplaces. The court said it is up to employers to decide whether to ban the visible wearing of religious, political and philosophical symbols by their employees.

The judgment comes the day before a Dutch election where immigration from majority-Muslim nations is a major issue.

One of the cases the ECJ ruled on was that of Samira Achbita, a Muslim woman employed as a receptionist by the security services firm G4S in Belgium in 2003, when there was an “unwritten rule” within the company barring employees from wearing visible signs of their religious and political beliefs at work.

In 2016, Achbita told the company she intended to wear a headscarf, after which the workplace regulations were amended to include the ban. Achbita was dismissed for continuing to wear a hijab, and challenged her firing in the Belgian courts.

The ECJ concluded that a ban on Islamic headscarves arising from an internal rule “does not constitute direct discrimination based on religion or belief within the meaning of the directive.”

In the other case, Asma Bougnaoui, a Muslim woman, arrived at Micropole — a consulting, engineering, and training firm — in France for an internship in Feb. 2008 wearing a bandana but later wore a headscarf. The firm hired her as a design engineer at the end of her internship but a customer complained about her hijab and the firm asked her not to wear it. Bougnaoui objected and was fired, leading her to challenge her dismissal in the French courts.

The ECJ decided that customers cannot demand that workers do not wear headscarves if the company doesn’t have a policy banning them.

It said in the absence of an internal rule banning the wearing of religious, political and philosophical signs, “the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer’s services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination.”

John Dalhuisen, a director at human rights organization Amnesty International, said the ruling had “opened a backdoor to prejudice.”

“Today’s disappointing rulings by the European Court of Justice give greater leeway to employers to discriminate against women – and men – on the grounds of religious belief. At a time when identity and appearance has become a political battleground, people need more protection against prejudice, not less. It is now for national governments to step up and protect the rights of their citizens,” he said in a statement.

The European Court of Justice, based in Luxembourg, interprets the law for the 28-nation European Union, and its decisions are binding for member states.

Source: USA Today

Fierce discussion has been sparked by the case of a Muslim lawyer who was banned from wearing a hijab in the Bavarian town of Augsburg earlier this year. But Aqilah Sandhu won the right to wear the garment after a court ruled that the prohibition was an attack on religious freedom and had no legal basis.

Now, two of Germany’s largest judges’ unions are calling for a formal ban on headscarves in the courtroom, as well as other religious symbols. “The neutral clothing of judges should act as an outward signal to all participants in the legal process that the court will objectively and impartially rule on their dispute according to the law,” Sven Rebehn, director of the German Association of Judges, told the Rheinische Post. “A law on dress codes must but not only be limited to the headscarf, but include other religious clothing or symbols.”

Robert Seegmüller, chairman of the Association of German Administrative Judges, said the required uniform of black robes, white shirt and white bow tie, cravat or neckerchief is important to show that the outcome of a case “does not depend on the person, but solely on what the law says”. He argued that neutral clothing was particularly important in cases where litigants are non-Muslims, The Local reported.

A possible ban on headscarves for legal representatives in court is also supported by politicians including the ministers of justice for Baden-Württemberg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, who are working on new state laws. But there is tension between arguments for neutrality and possible violations of religious freedom.

Source: The Independent