Prohibition on displaying all religious symbols in court is
really aimed at educated female Muslims, critics say.
8 February 2016About 2,000 people rallied in Sarajevo 7
February against a ban on employees of the Bosnian judicial system from wearing
the hijab at work.
One of the organizers of the protest, Samira Zunic Velagic,
said the recent decision by the country’s high judicial council was a
"serious attack against Muslim honor, personality, and identity,” Radio
Free Europe reported.
The decision means that, lawyers, judges, and other
employees of courts and judicial institutions may not wear the hijab at work.
Although the rule applies to all “religious symbols,” the hijab is specifically
named, Al Jazeera says.
Muslims are the largest religious group in Bosnia, and make
up the majority in the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity.
One hijab-wearing lawyer said no judges or prosecutors wear
the headscarf, showing that the legal system tacitly discriminates against
Muslim women.
A law on the books since 2003 stating that "judges and
officials cannot show any kind of religious, political, national or other
affiliation while performing official duties" has never been tested, Al
Jazeera says.
Council president Milan Tegeltija said the ruling simply
applies the existing law.
“In a secular country” such as Bosnia, “everything has to be
secular, especially the public institutions which decide people's rights and
interests," he said.
But that argument is specious, the president of the
Commission on Religious Freedom of the Islamic Community, Dermana Seta
maintains.
"Even if it appears as neutral and as if [the ban]
applies to everyone, in reality it targets mostly one specific group – educated
women who wear the hijab," Al Jazeera quotes Seta as saying.
The council ruling also forbids the exercise of faith during
working hours in judicial institutions, Islamic theologian and Balkan analyst
Muhamed Jusic wrote for Al Jazeera’s Bosnian service in January.
"If we allow Muslims to go to Friday prayers, others
will immediately seek their rights – Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Jews. We
cannot organize our work that way,” judicial council vice-president RuzicaJukic told N1 television.
“I was at a Turkish court and I never saw a judge with her
head covered," Jukic added.
The hijab issue is also drawing attention to a “deep
misunderstanding over religious rights in the public space, which has long been
part of Bosnian society,” theologian Muhamed Jusic wrote.
Demands from the Bosnian Islamic community have held up the
signing of an agreement with the government, even though arrangements have been
reached with the Roman Catholic and Serbian Orthodox churches.
These are countered by arguments by politicians and media in
the overwhelmingly Orthodox Serb entity that Muslim
Izvor: http://www.tol.org/client/transitions/11869-about-us.html
Compiled by Ky Krauthamer (TOL)
Transitions (TOL) is a nonprofit organization established to
strengthen the professionalism, independence and impact of the news media in
the post-communist countries of Europe and the former Soviet Union. We do this
through a combination of journalism and media training programs, and the
publication of Transitions Online magazine
