https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16873/austria-court-headscarf-ban
The case highlights the constitutional restraints that European governments face in regulating political Islam and promoting integration.
“A regulation that only affects a certain group of female students and that remains selective in order to ensure religious and ideological neutrality as well as gender equality misses its regulatory goal and is irrelevant. §43a SchUG therefore violates the principle of equality in connection with the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” — Austria’s Constitutional Court, December 11, 2020.
“The prohibition of the wearing of Islamic headscarves in elementary schools was never intended to be a restriction of religious freedom, but rather as a protective mechanism against sexualization and Islamic oppression of underage children…. Unfortunately, this judgment is a step backwards in terms of civilization.” — Leader of the Freedom Party in Upper Austria, Manfred Haimbuchner.
The Austrian Constitutional Court has ruled that Austria’s ban on the wearing of headscarves in public schools violates the freedom of religion and the freedom of expression and therefore is unconstitutional.
The case highlights the constitutional restraints that European governments face in regulating political Islam and promoting integration.
The headscarf ban, introduced in June 2019 by a governing coalition comprised of the center-right People’s Party (ÖVP) and the populist Freedom Party (FPÖ), was an extension of a groundbreaking October 2017 “Integration Law” that sought to improve the integration of Muslims into Austrian society.
The 2017 law banned face coverings — including burkas, niqabs or masks — in public spaces. The 2019 law extended that ban to preclude children under the age of ten from wearing headscarves in primary schools.
The 2019 law, which did not explicitly refer to Muslims or Islam, banned “any clothing that is ideological or religious and that involves covering the head.” The law defined head coverings as “any type of clothing that covers the entire head hair or large parts of it.” The text explained that the law was necessary to promote “the social integration of children according to local customs and traditions, the preservation of the basic constitutional values and educational goals of the Federal Constitution, as well as the equality of men and women.”