The French Burkini Ban: State-Sanctioned Violence Against Women

 Pictures surfaced yesterday of armed French police on a beach in Cannes confronting a woman lying on the beach, forcing her to remove her coverings. The controversial Burkini Ban came into force at the end of July after the horrific Bastille Day killings in Nice in an apparent bid to tackle radical Islam. After becoming the first European country to implement a law prohibiting "concealment of the face in public space" back in 2004 - applying to Burqas, Niqābs and balaclavas - this law has been predominantly used to target Muslim women, with the European Court of Human Rights ruling to uphold the ban back in 2014.

 With that bit of background out of the way, the recent Burkini Ban has sparked outrage across the internet, from religious rights groups, to feminist groups, and many others who believe in basic human rights; the image of armed police confronting a woman has been widely circulated and fuelled this anger. If it were anybody else toting a gun, coming up to a woman and forcing her to remove her clothing it would be treated, rightly so, as sexual harassment under threat of violence. Yet as they are police officers enforcing a bigoted law the onlooking crowd did nothing other than applaud, as well as throwing in racial slurs and harassment. I find the images of this absolutely heartbreaking. Imagine for a moment you're on the beach, enjoying a day of sea and sun with your daughter, and a group of armed men are suddenly standing over you and forcing you to remove your clothes. It's a sickening feeling, isn't it? You get a tightness in your throat, you start to shake, all eyes are on you; you're a spectacle, being humiliated in public. These women are enjoying the sun with their families, they are not criminals.

 Then why, just why, is this law being enforced?

 According to The Guardian the ban is being enforced by 15 local authorities in order to "citing public concern following recent terrorist attacks in the country." You know, rather than teaching the public about tolerance, putting programmes and services in place to help make Muslim communities feel safer and more included in their local areas, therefore less likely to want to get involved with extremist groups.  No, we'll just enforce violent bans to make non-Muslims feel safer by spreading Islamophobic messages and making spectacles out of them. That'll make French Muslims less likely to want to act out against the government and authorities!

 Except... No.

Source: Thanh Nien news

 By taking away somebody's basic human right to personally express their religion, all they are doing is fear mongering and alienating French Muslims. They are forcing them away, telling them that their religion and French values are not compatible, that they are outsiders. These attitudes also spark fear and mistrust of Muslims in the widers French population, with hate crimes against Muslims having trebled in 2015 that number is only set to rise if the message doesn't change from one of distrust and persecution to one of tolerance and coexistence. One argument used to justify the initial ban of face covering religious dress was to stop women being forced to wear them by men in their communities and families. Yes, this does happen in some areas - notably the Burqa being enforced by the Taliban and Daesh (the so-called Islamic State). Yet where is the liberation in violently forcing somebody to remove their clothing, as opposed to violently forcing them to wear something they do not want to?

 Many Muslim women in the West choose to wear the form of religious dress that they feel most comfortable with themselves. They find it liberating and a way to feel closer to God, who do the French government think they are to tell them "No, you are not allowed to feel comfortable with yourself and practice your religion in a way you want to"? It is famously a secular country yet most targeted hate crimes regarding dress have been against Muslims and Jews. There would be national outrage if groups of roaming atheists went around ripping off Nuns' Coifs and Habits, holding them at gunpoint and claiming their modesty is oppressing them.

 There is a long history of laws and 'morality' being used to police women's bodies, like the picture above which shows a police officer from the West Palm Beach police force measuring Betty Fringle's bathing suit to see if it's long and modest enough. Again in the eyes of a man with no regard for a woman's comfort and freedom of expression. It's been 91 years, can we not just bloody swim in peace?? Certainly this modern case reeks of racism and Islamophobia but it is just another example of taking away our right of how to present our own bodies in public.

 As a white, atheist woman I can't fully relate to these experiences. My closest experience to something like this would have been in secondary school where we would be made to kneel on the floor to see if our skirts were long enough (no option to wear trousers), or receiving detention for wearing a bra any other colour than white as it was a distraction to male pupils; often with older male teachers pointing out such infringements, it makes me feel physically sick thinking about these memories. Personally I love how burkinis look, when doing research for images I came across so many beautiful and well put together designs, why deprive women of the joy of going to the beach, spending time with family and friends and feeling comfortable while doing so? Women will never be free and equal until such instances no longer happen.

UPDATE: After publishing this post I spotted this very welcome contrast from Scotland, introducing a uniform Hijab for women in the police force. Thank you for being the voice of reason, Scotland!