No, it happened on French Riviera beaches just this week. These incidents follow a series of municipal decrees de facto banning burkinis , and, apparently, any other skin concealing beach outfits worn by Muslim women, in about 30 French towns.
The bans were adopted in the aftermath of two horrific terror attacks: the truck attack in Nice and the church killing in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. Previous efforts to challenge the bans in court have so far failed. In Nice, the administrative court rejected the appeals brought before it by the French Human Rights League and the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, and instead confirmed a previous decision, taken on August But what in fact these bans serve to do is create a dangerous and absurd confusion between how some Muslim women choose to dress and the despicable terrorist attacks that French people, of all religions, have suffered.
Instead of encouraging all French people to live together peacefully and promoting equality and fundamental freedoms, which is the responsibility of the public authorities, the burkini ban and the revival of the endless controversy on religious symbols linked to Islam merely stigmatize practicing Muslim women, exclude them from public spaces — and sharing those spaces with their families and friends — and deprive them of their rights to autonomy, to leisure activities, to wear what they chose, and of course to practice their faith.
Not to mention the ridiculous argument about hygiene: how can one seriously think that burkinis are less hygienic than wet suits, or long-sleeve T-shirts worn by kids to protect them from the sun?
But the burkini bans are more than just unfair and discriminatory, they are also dangerous. Because linking a bathing suit to terrorist threats, without any facts to justify such a statement, endorses false and harmful narratives about Muslim communities and risks increasing tensions between communities, while hardening the feeling of injustice felt by some Muslims in France. The burkini ban is also a concrete example of the very real dangers an extended state of emergency poses to basic rights and equality: a risk about which Human Rights Watch has repeatedly warned.
