Belgium’s ban on face veils is found to not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
The decision made on Tuesday July 11th, 2017 was just another in a long line of battles that have been fought in courts since the initial implementation of the face veil ban in 2011 (Foster, 2016). Two women, Yamina Hussar, a Moroccan citizen, and Samia Belcacemi, a Belgian, have been fighting Belgium’s ban of wearing the niqab and the burqa in public anywhere in Belgium and have claimed that this ban infringes upon their rights. However, this Tuesday,the European Court of Human Rights decided that it is not. (Waterfield, 2017).
There is a scale of severity when it comes to the implementation of face veil bans across Europe. Some countries, such as the Netherlands, do not ban the veil from being worn at all times but specifically forbids the wearing of a veil in situations where it is “essential for people to be seen”, or in Germany where it is enforced “wherever legal possible” but as of yet has not been universally implemented(BBC, 2017). Other countries, namely France and Belgium, have completely outlawed the niqab and the burqa from being worn in public. In Belgium women who are found wearing these garments in public can be fined and sentenced up to seven days imprisonment (Crisp, 2017).
The court stated in their ruling on Tuesday that the law has been created to defend “public safety, equality between men and women and a certain concept of living together in a society.” (EurActive, 2017). There is an bias that is placed at the centre of this ruling, which is that the burqa and the niqab are obstructing equality between men and women and threaten the public safety of citizens. There are many ways to disguise ones identity these days, from makeup to masks or full-face, zip-up hoodies. These universal bans of these garments from being worn in public setting only succeed in making the women, specifically muslim women who want to wear these garments, feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. In some reported cases, women will refuse to leave their homes because they are worried they will be targeted for wearing the clothing they feel most comfortable wearing (Crisp, 2017). One must walk a fine line when trying to foster equality for all because in some cases actions can lead to policies and laws which insist on assimilation and inhibit the integration of specifically targeted individuals (BBC, 2017).