Burkini-clad women aren’t enslaved or political projects – they’re just women who are retaining their modesty while having fun by the pool or at the beach.
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While presented by the mayors as necessary to defend secularism and public order faced with rare sightings of burkinis on French beaches, police have also fined women for being fully clothed and having their heads covered, out of the water.
One woman, identified only as Siam, 34, told the French magazine L’OBS that she was sitting on the beach with her family wearing a “classic headscarf” and leggings and not a burkini when she was fined and subjected to racial slurs.
France’s highest administrative court will review the bans on Thursday, after French NGO the Human Rights League appealed the measures. Technically the woman, who was wearing a beach-appropriate hijab that covers the body and head and is known as a Burkini, was breaking the law.
While some French see the outfit as a glaring display of religious convictions – which goes against cherished values separating religion and public life – those who wear it see it as a matter of practicality.
Cannes’ decision to ban the burkini was followed by a similar bans in 14 other French towns, including the Nice-area town of Villeneuve-Loubet.
The interdiction has come as France continued to reel from a series of deadly terror attacks in the past two years that have left more than 200 people dead and hundreds more wounded. “Tomorrow, the street? Tomorrow, we’ll be forbidden from practicing our religion at all?” she said. They stand over her, hands on hips, as she removes her tunic. “I had no intention of swimming”, she said.
Marwan Muhammad, president of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, told CNN, out of the 15 women they are helping, none were wearing burkinis – only headscarves.
A witness to the scene, journalist Mathilde Cusin, confirmed the incident.
The woman is pictured removing a veil and baring her arms. My daughter was crying.
The French authorities have misunderstood why the burkini was created and should not turn it into a symbol of division, the Australian designer of the swimsuit said on Wednesday.
Instead of promoting unity in the country, the burkini bans are a “racist excuse” to target Muslims, Torkia argued.
“I heard things no one had ever said to my face, like ‘Go home!’ ‘Madam, the law is the law, we’re exhausted of these stories, ‘ ‘Here, we are Catholic!,'” she added.
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Such decrees insist on the wearing of “proper attire, which is respectful of good morality and the principle of secularism” – wording which effectively refers to the “burkini” a full body swimsuit covering the hair down to the ankles which is worn by very few women.
