By Layli Foroudi
PARIS (Reuters) – French authorities and Olympics officers are searching for a inventive resolution to permit Muslim French sprinter Sounkamba Sylla to put on her hijab on the opening ceremony whereas nonetheless complying with the nation’s secularism legal guidelines, they mentioned on Wednesday.
1000’s of athletes, together with some who put on a hijab, are arriving for the Paris Olympics, inserting a world highlight on tensions in France over nationwide id and perceived discrimination towards Muslims.
Sylla, a part of France’s 400-metre relay group, wrote on her Instagram account on Monday that her hijab – a head overlaying worn by many Muslim ladies – would stop her from showing in Friday’s blockbuster opening ceremony alongside the Seine River.
“You might be chosen for the Olympic Video games, organised in your nation, however you may’t participate within the opening ceremony since you put on a shawl in your head,” Sylla posted on her account.
She didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
France, house to Europe’s largest Muslim minority, enforces legal guidelines to guard the precept of secularism underneath which state staff and faculty pupils are banned from sporting spiritual symbols and clothes in public establishments. Rights teams say these guidelines successfully discriminate towards Muslims.
Desperate to keep away from an embarrassing home flap with your entire world watching, French authorities and Olympics officers mentioned they had been keen to discover a resolution for Sylla, though it stays unclear what that might be.
“Our residents anticipate us to comply with these rules of secularism, however we additionally should be creative about options to make everybody really feel good,” Amelia Oudea-Castera, minister for sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Video games, mentioned on Wednesday, including that Sylla “understands our rules, our guidelines”.
International athletes usually are not affected by the secularism guidelines.
David Lappartient, president of the French Olympic Committee, mentioned the French Olympic group was “collaborating in a public service mission and on this respect it’s obliged to look at secularism”.
He acknowledged that the French strategy “is typically incomprehensible in different nations”, however mentioned there was nonetheless time to search out options earlier than the gala ceremony.
Quite a few French sporting authorities have banned ladies from sporting spiritual head coverings, corresponding to in soccer, basketball, judo and boxing, in accordance with Human Rights Watch.
The Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) doesn’t have guidelines towards sporting spiritual head coverings.
Maria Hurtado, spokeswoman for the U.N. excessive commissioner for human rights, criticised the French authorities in September final yr over its stance on the hijab for French athletes through the Olympic Video games, saying that “nobody ought to impose on a lady what she must put on, or not put on”.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that Sylla would possibly take part within the Olympics opening ceremony sporting a cap.
(Reporting by Layli Foroudi; enhancing by Mark Heinrich)
