French athletes banned from wearing hijab at 2024 Olympics

By Irmak Kucukaksu

ISTANBUL (AA) - French athletes have been barred from wearing the hijab, or Muslim headscarf, at the Paris Olympic Games.

France imposed the ban on its national team players as it prepares to host the Games from July 26 to Aug. 11 and the Paralympics from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8.

French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera initially announced the ban on Sept. 24, 2023.

A few days later, Oudea-Castera, who was a guest of the French political show Dimanche en Politique, confirmed that no woman in her country's delegation would wear a headscarf during the Paris Olympics.

Following the announcement of the ban, Marta Hurtado, the spokeswoman for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said in a statement on Sept. 26 that the ban was not right.

“No one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear or not wear," Hurtado said.

On May 24 this year, Amnesty International and several other organizations came together to send a letter on the ban to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the organization responsible for organizing the Olympic Games. It called on the IOC to make a public appeal to sports authorities in France to lift all restrictions on French athletes wearing the headscarf, both at the Paris Olympic Games and at all sporting events.

Amnesty International said the IOC responded inadequately to the joint letter.

In its response, the IOC said France's headscarf ban was outside the remit of the committee and that “freedom of religion is interpreted in many different ways by different states."

Subsequently, in a press release dated July 16, Amnesty International said the headscarf ban demonstrates the existence of the country's “discriminatory double standard” policy. It reiterated that the ban on the participation of veiled French athletes at the Olympic Games violates international human rights law.

It also said the ban demonstrates the “discriminatory hypocrisy” of the French authorities on the eve of the Paris Olympic Games and the “weakness” of the IOC in its response.

*Writing by Serdar Dincel in Istanbul