The Council of State, Belgium’s top administrative court, ruled that schools may ban girls from wearing the Muslim headscarf or hijab. The court argued that a ban on the garment is not discriminatory, but rather, reinforced principals of equality and solidarity.
While the ruling does not argue for a mandatory ban, it gives Belgian schools to take the decision into their own hands. The Movement against Racism, anti-Semitism, and Xenophobia, a prominent civil rights group, slammed the ruling as “ideological, factious, and anti-democratic.” It added that it was considering appealing the ruling to either the European Court of Human Rights, or the United Nations Human Rights Council.
