Employers Can Ban Headscarf, Other Religious Symbols At Work, Rules EU Court

In Europe, your employer can bar you from wearing your Islamic headscarf and other visible religious symbols at the workplace. That was the ruling of the European Union’s top court today (14 March).

The European Court of Justice was looking into a case involving a Belgian firm which had a rule barring employees who dealt with customers from wearing visible religious and political symbols “to project a public image of neutrality”. The court ruled that the firm was not guilty of discrimination, said a Reuters report.

However, acting against an employee based on a condition, like, say, if a particular client objected, would amount to breaching EU law, which bars discrimination on religious grounds, as the court observed in a different ruling involving a French company that dismissed a software engineer for refusing to remove her headscarf, as per the report.

The judgment arrives just two days before the Dutch election, in which Muslim immigration is a key political issue. Anti-immigration is also a concern in France, which votes for a president next month.