PARIS — Salimata Sylla was about to steer her staff onto the basketball court docket, as she had completed many instances earlier than.
On that Sunday morning, she and her teammates had accomplished a three-hour bus journey from the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers to a rival membership in northern France. That they had modified and warmed up, and Sylla, the staff captain, was able to go.
However moments earlier than tipoff, she was advised she couldn’t play. The explanation? Her headband.
Greater than two years later, Sylla continues to be barred from competing underneath the French basketball federation’s jurisdiction.
The 27-year-old former level guard is amongst hundreds of younger Muslim girls in France who’re sidelined from aggressive sport due to bans on uniforms and different clothes which have non secular or political significance. These guidelines, critics say, disproportionately goal hijab-wearing Muslim athletes.
Now, a contentious invoice backed by right-wing politicians that might ban headscarves in all sporting competitions has cleared its first legislative hurdle within the Senate. If handed by the decrease home, it will enshrine into legislation what has till now been determined by particular person sporting federations.
Supporters say the proposed legislation is a mandatory step to protect secularism — a pillar of the French Republic. Opponents denounce it as discriminatory, Islamophobic, and a violation of each the rule of legislation and the very idea of secularism.
“We all know that sport is a automobile for emancipation, particularly for ladies,” Sylla advised The Related Press. “So what are they actually attempting to inform us? They assume we’re oppressed as a result of we put on our headband? However in the long run, they’re additionally oppressing us as a result of they’ve excluded us from basketball courts. We selected to be Muslims. On no account must you inform me what we should always or shouldn’t put on.”
In January 2023, she was advised to take away her headband if she needed to play in opposition to rival membership Escaudain within the Nationwide 3 league. Sylla refused, citing private conviction and the truth that her sports activities hijab was formally authorised and deemed appropriate for aggressive use.
Solely then did she be taught that the basketball federation’s guidelines banned all head coverings as inappropriate for play, opposite to the foundations of the worldwide basketball federation.
“I used to be actually shocked,” Sylla mentioned. “I went to see the referee to inform him that I’d performed eight video games with it because the begin of the season and that nobody had banned me from enjoying with it. And he mentioned: ‘I’m sorry, listed below are the foundations.’”
The French federation didn’t present The Related Press with an evidence for the ban on hijabs in competitions.
Sylla, who this 12 months made a pilgrimage to the Muslim holy metropolis of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, has stopped enjoying along with her former membership. She continues internet hosting video games exterior of the federation’s jurisdiction, organizing month-to-month tournaments in Paris and its suburbs which can be open to girls enjoying basketball with or with no hijab.
“You don’t wish to embrace us? So we’re going to incorporate everybody,” Sylla mentioned.
Till now, sports activities federations have been free to resolve whether or not to permit headscarves. One of many nation’s predominant sports activities, soccer, opted to ban them.
A date has but to be set for the invoice to be debated within the decrease home of the Parliament. To go, it will want a coalition of forces that don’t normally work collectively within the deeply divided Nationwide Meeting.
However the senators’ vote in favor of the invoice has already reignited the continued debate on secularism and the separation of church and state. It is nonetheless a hot-button situation greater than a century after a 1905 legislation established it as a precept of the French Republic.
French secularism — “la laïcité” — affirms the idea of spiritual freedom, whereas stipulating that the state doesn’t favor any faith and stays impartial. At its most elementary degree, it holds that everybody in France is free to imagine — or to not imagine — and free to worship as they need however to not foist their non secular beliefs on others in public areas. Conceived to guard everybody’s non secular freedom after centuries of bloody non secular wars, the laïcité is now seen by critics as a pretext to discriminate and limit Muslims’ entry to public life.
A gaggle of headscarf-wearing soccer gamers referred to as “Les Hijabeuses,” who marketing campaign in opposition to the ban, say the brand new invoice would unfairly power Muslim girls to decide on between sporting a headband or enjoying a sport.
“We reject this injustice,” they mentioned. “As a result of this legislation has no place in France. And it by no means will. We are going to proceed to battle till this selection is now not imposed.”
After France’s highest administrative court docket dominated in 2023 that the soccer federation can ban headscarves in matches, the Hijabeuses have lodged a grievance with the European Court docket of Human Rights in opposition to France, alleging a violation of their freedom of faith.
Supporters of the invoice cite rising assaults on secularism in sport, arguing that its core values are based mostly on a precept of universality. To guard sports activities grounds from any nonsporting confrontation, they are saying, a precept of neutrality must be carried out to make sure that no political, non secular or racial agenda might be promoted.
“For a number of years now, governing our bodies and native elected officers have been warning of the rampant unfold of the concepts of the architects of radicalization and proselytism in sport,” mentioned Michel Savin, the senator who promoted the invoice. “Every time they will, they attempt to check the bounds of our republican rules.”
Nicolas Cadène, the previous secretary-general of the now defunct Observatory for Laïcité, a nonpartisan establishment that beforehand suggested the French authorities, says the rules of French secularism can’t be used to justify the headband ban.
“The state, as a result of it’s secular, has no enterprise judging a non secular image,” he mentioned. “That isn’t its concern. The state doesn’t cope with non secular symbols — it solely prohibits them for many who characterize the general public administration. This legislation goals to exclude all these younger girls.”
The invoice is dividing the federal government and pitting athletes in opposition to one another.
5-time Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner — a towering determine in French sports activities — has joined the fray, arguing that the invoice was focusing on one faith, and that French society ought to as a substitute concentrate on selling equality. Mahyar Monshipour, a former skilled boxer born in Iran, hit again, asking Riner to not get entangled in a debate he didn’t perceive.
“The headband — which isn’t, as they’d have you ever imagine, a chunk of material masking the hair however slightly a ‘shroud’ meant to hide the our bodies of ladies from the onset of menstruation — is in itself a visual signal of an institutionalized and legitimized inequality between women and men,” Monshipour argued.
The dispute has uncovered cracks throughout the coalition authorities. Whereas some ministers have expressed doubts in regards to the invoice, it has the robust backing of hard-right heavyweights akin to Inside Minister Bruno Retailleau.
The hijab “radically questions the equality of women and men, and is an indication of the degradation of the standing of ladies,” he mentioned. “Clearly not all girls who put on the veil are Islamists. However you received’t discover a single Islamist who doesn’t need girls to put on the veil.”
Lawmakers have beforehand authorised a invoice to strengthen oversight of mosques, colleges and sports activities golf equipment. With France bloodied by terror assaults, there’s widespread sentiment that Islamic radicalization was a hazard. However critics additionally seen that 2021 legislation as a political ploy to lure the proper wing to President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist occasion forward of the presidential election that Macron received.
With the subsequent presidential election two years away, the talk over radical Islam has resurfaced, returning to the highlight following the current launch of a government-commissioned report that raised issues in regards to the Muslim Brotherhood’s efforts to increase its affect in France via grassroots organizations, together with sports activities golf equipment.
Amnesty Worldwide mentioned the brand new invoice targets Muslim girls and ladies by excluding them from sporting competitions in the event that they put on a headband or different non secular clothes. Forward of the 2024 Olympic Video games, Amnesty printed analysis guidelines in 38 European nations and located that France was the one nation to ban non secular headwear in sport.
“If the legislation passes, France would be the solely democracy on this planet to ban all non secular head coverings or equipment in sports activities,” Cadène mentioned.
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Related Press faith protection receives help via the AP’s collaboration with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely answerable for this content material.
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