Muslims in Europe Dogged by Bias, Amnesty Says
Muslims in Europe face discrimination in education, employment and religious freedom, an Amnesty International report said.
“Muslim women are being denied jobs and girls prevented from attending regular classes just because they wear traditional forms of dress, such as the headscarf. Men can be dismissed for wearing beards associated with Islam,” said Marco Perolini, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination. “Rather than countering these prejudices, political parties and public officials are all too often pandering to them in their quest for votes.”
The report, titled “Choice and Prejudice: Discrimination Against Muslims in Europe” and issued on Monday, details the problem, with a focus on Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.
Amnesty International raised the issue, as it has done before, of restrictions “on the establishment of places of worship and prohibitions on full-face veils.”
The report said employers have been permitted “to discriminate on the grounds that religious or cultural symbols will jar with clients or colleagues or that a clash exists with a company’s corporate image or its ‘neutrality.’
“Wearing religious and cultural symbols and dress is part of the right of freedom of expression. It is part of the right to freedom of religion or belief — and these rights must be enjoyed by all faiths equally.” Perolini said.
“While everyone has the right to express their cultural, traditional or religious background by wearing a specific form of dress, no one should be pressurized or coerced to do so,” he said. “General bans on particular forms of dress that violate the rights of those freely choosing to dress in a particular way are not the way to do this.”