The Muslim Other v. Whiteness : How Muslim women and girls became the Other in the European Court of Human Rights
Schröter, Karla (2022)
Schröter, Karla
2022
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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022051234854
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022051234854
Tiivistelmä
The European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) has repeatedly found no violation of articles 9 and 14 in cases where Muslim girls and women have alleged that their human rights have been violated through prohibitions that prevented them from wearing a hijab in schools or hospitals. Furthermore, the Court has found no violation of the relevant articles when France and Belgium banned covering the face in public, meaning that Muslim women who wished to wear a face-veil were banned from public spaces. Consequently, the applicants and many other Muslim women have been excluded from education and employment in France, and women who wear a face-veil have been barred from entering public spaces with the threat of criminal sanctions in France and parts of Belgium.
Many scholars have criticised the Court’s failure to identify a violation of the applicants’ religious rights and indirect discrimination against Muslim women in the relevant cases. While scholars have mainly focused on the intersection of gender and religion, little attention has been paid to race. This paper argues that the aspect of religion cannot be fully understood without examining how Muslims have become a racialised minority in Europe and a counterpoint to what is “European”. To examine what implications the racialisation of Muslims in Europe has on the Court’s decisions, this thesis utilises Critical Race Theory and Critical Frame Analysis to analyse the relevant case law. This thesis aims to answer the following research question: Is racist Islamophobia reflected in and reproduced through the reasoning of the Court and does the Court legitimise state produced racism against Muslims? In addition, this thesis reviews suggestions that scholars have made for courts to better counter prejudices and discrimination against disadvantaged groups.
The thesis concludes that the Court has largely accepted and distributed prejudices presented by the respondent states towards veils, Muslim women and Muslims in general. The colonial narratives of the dangerous Muslim, and the promise of equal rights once Muslims become less Muslim (and more white) are still alive and operating, and are ultimately legitimised by the Court. The standardisation of the European white experiences through seemingly neutral rules does not only make itself visible in prejudices that the Court reflects, but also in its inconsistent argumentation that by default seems to lead to the finding that the interests of the state and whites are to be protected over the rights of Muslim women and girls.
Many scholars have criticised the Court’s failure to identify a violation of the applicants’ religious rights and indirect discrimination against Muslim women in the relevant cases. While scholars have mainly focused on the intersection of gender and religion, little attention has been paid to race. This paper argues that the aspect of religion cannot be fully understood without examining how Muslims have become a racialised minority in Europe and a counterpoint to what is “European”. To examine what implications the racialisation of Muslims in Europe has on the Court’s decisions, this thesis utilises Critical Race Theory and Critical Frame Analysis to analyse the relevant case law. This thesis aims to answer the following research question: Is racist Islamophobia reflected in and reproduced through the reasoning of the Court and does the Court legitimise state produced racism against Muslims? In addition, this thesis reviews suggestions that scholars have made for courts to better counter prejudices and discrimination against disadvantaged groups.
The thesis concludes that the Court has largely accepted and distributed prejudices presented by the respondent states towards veils, Muslim women and Muslims in general. The colonial narratives of the dangerous Muslim, and the promise of equal rights once Muslims become less Muslim (and more white) are still alive and operating, and are ultimately legitimised by the Court. The standardisation of the European white experiences through seemingly neutral rules does not only make itself visible in prejudices that the Court reflects, but also in its inconsistent argumentation that by default seems to lead to the finding that the interests of the state and whites are to be protected over the rights of Muslim women and girls.