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UN Criticizes French Burqa Ban, Demands Review

(Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

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Joshua Gill Religion Reporter
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The U.N. Human Rights Committee ruled Tuesday that France’s ban on Islamic face coverings violates Muslim women’s rights and should therefore be reviewed.

The committee, tasked with monitoring countries’ implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), argued France did not adequately explain why the 2010 ban on Islamic face veils in public was necessary. While the committee’s ruling is non-binding, France is obliged to comply with it “in good faith,” as it is one of 172 countries that ratified the ICCPR. (RELATED: China Spins Internment Camps Used To Indoctrinate Muslims As ‘Vocational Training’ Centers)

Kenza Drider (R), candidate for the 2012 French presidential election, talks to her spokeswoman Hind Ahmas on December 12, 2011 in front of the police tribunal in Paris, after both women were fined for violating France's niqab ban. In France, a woman who repeatedly insists on appearing veiled in public can be fined 150 euros and ordered to attend re-education classes. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

Kenza Drider (R), candidate for the 2012 French presidential election, talks to her spokeswoman Hind Ahmas on December 12, 2011 in front of the police tribunal in Paris, after both women were fined for violating France’s niqab ban. In France, a woman who repeatedly insists on appearing veiled in public can be fined 150 euros and ordered to attend re-education classes. (MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)

“In particular, the Committee was not persuaded by France’s claim that a ban on face covering was necessary and proportionate from a security standpoint or for attaining the goal of ‘living together’ in society,” the committee said, according to HuffPost. “The Committee acknowledged that States could require that individuals show their faces in specific circumstances for identification purposes, but considered that a general ban on the niqab was too sweeping for this purpose.”

The committee’s ruling contradicted a previous 2014 finding by the European Court of Human Rights that approved France’s law on the grounds it encouraged integration into French society and culture. Rulings by the ECHR, which is not a U.N, institution, are binding.

Nevertheless, The U.N. Human Rights Committee gave France 180 days to report on its implementation of its ruling and also asked France to pay restitution to the two Muslim women who appealed to the committee after being fined for violating France’s law.

The French ban on face coverings, as it currently stands, states: “No one may, in a public space, wear any article of clothing intended to conceal the face.”

Those who violate the law are subject to either a French citizenship course or a fine equaling $172.

France was the first European country to implement a “Burqa Ban,” but was followed thereafter by Belgium, Denmark, France, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Latvia, Kosovo and certain regions in Switzerland.

France also has the largest Muslim population of any country in the European Union, totaling approximately 5.7 million Muslims as of 2016, accounting for 8.8 percent of France’s population, according to the Pew Research Center.

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