Hundreds Rally in Brussels Against Headscarf Ban in Universities

While the National Security Council has only authorized a gathering of 400 people, the event was attended by 1,200 protesters, according to the police. But the organizers speak of several thousand. Gathered under the banner "#HijabisFightBack Protest", there were many women proudly wearing the headscarf and chanting slogans like "Hands off my headscarf" and "Hands off my studies", reports lacapitale.be.

While the Constitutional Court ruled in its judgment that "the provision in question does not make a distinction based on the nature of religious beliefs", Hajare Boujtat, spokesperson for the collective of 100 graduates, denounces "a de facto discrimination". "On paper, it says it’s not discriminatory, but in reality, most of the time it targets women wearing the headscarf, even if other minorities can also be affected. So, everyone is not treated equally. It is women wearing the headscarf who are more particularly excluded," she says.

On the placards we can read "Neutrality is not exclusion". For Souhaïla Amri, a member of the Imazi Reine collective, "the ban on religious symbols at the level of higher education goes beyond the principle of the neutrality of the State and tends towards a secularization of society". It was in 2017 that several students had filed a cassation action before the Brussels Court of First Instance against the internal regulations of the Francisco Ferrer Higher School of the City of Brussels, "prohibiting its students from wearing signs manifesting a philosophical or religious affiliation, including a headdress".

The court turned to the Constitutional Court for a preliminary question. It was finally on June 4 that the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the school. Nevertheless, the French-speaking ministers of the Brussels government have spoken out in favor of "lifting the ban on the wearing of ideological signs for students in higher and adult education for the 2020 school year," the same source said.