France have banned French female athletes from wearing hijabs at the Olympic Games sparking a huge backlash from activists.

France announced that it would prevent its athletes wearing the hijab in September of last year.

Now, Amnesty International has hit back at the decision which they describe as ‘discriminatory hypocrisy’.

Amnesty International said that the ban breached international human rights laws and that it prevented athletes from exercising their human right to play sport without discrimination of any kind.

Amnesty International and ten other organisations called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to step in.

However, the IOC responded that overturning the policy was beyond its remit, explaining that ‘freedom of religion is interpreted in many different ways by different states.’

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The IOC clarified that its own rules applied in the Olympic Village and therefore athletes would be permitted to wear headscarves saying: “There are no restrictions on wearing the hijab or any other religious or cultural attire.”

Anna Błuś, Amnesty’s International Women‘s Rights Researcher in Europe said: “Banning French athletes from competing with sports hijabs at the Olympic and Paralympic Games makes a mockery of claims that Paris 2024 is the first Gender Equal Olympics and lays bare the racist gender discrimination that underpins access to sport in France.”

France is the only country in Europe to prevent headscarf wearing women from participating in most domestic sports competitions.

Rights groups have said that not only does the policy go against IOC’s guidelines but also international treaty obligations that France are required to uphold.

Although the UN have not directly addressed the ban, the UN Rights Office’s spokeswoman in Geneva said: “No-one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear or not to wear.”

She also warned such practices could have harmful consequences and said policies like this are only acceptable under really specific circumstances.

Last updated on September 23rd, 2024 at 08:00 am