Towards a New Future

• Author: Natasha Bakht
• Pages: 161-167

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 conclusion

TOWARDS A NEW FUTURE

  ,  European Court of Human Rights rendered

its f‌irst-ever ruling in favour of Muslim women’s freedom to wear the

headscarf. Hagar Lachiri, who was a party in a civil case investigating

the death of her brother, was ordered to remove her headscarf in a Bel-

gian courtroom. e Belgian Court’s decision to exclude Lachiri relied on

a law from the nineteenth century that required people attending court

to have their heads uncovered, though the law was not deployed against

Christian nuns in habits or Sikh and Jewish men who wore a turban or

kippah. e Belgian government defended the law by claiming the need

to keep order in the court. Coming after years of defeats for Muslim

women claimants wearing hijabs and niqabs, Lachiri c Belgique represents

an important advance in the European protection of the human rights

of Muslim women. Although Lachiri involved a hijab-wearing woman

and does not guarantee that niqab-wearing women will be extended the

same acceptance in courtrooms, the case might portend a changing of

the legal tide in a continent that has been overwhelmingly opposed to

the visibility of Muslimness.

Equally encouraging is the fact that in October , the United

Nations Human Rights Committee found that France’s ban of the niqab

in public places, implemented in , violated the human rights of