Right: cartoonists around the world were quick to point out the obvious in the burkini beach ban controversy. (And, yes, congratulations for picking up the cartoonist's spelling error!)
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Background information
Most of the information contained below has been abbreviated from an article titled 'A Brief History of the French Burkini Ban' published on September 9, 2016, on Sharia Source at Harvard Law School.
The full text can be found at https://shariasourceblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/a-brief-history-of-the-french-burkini-ban/
Burkini ban in France
Burkini bans have been implemented by various cities and communes on the French coast, with authorities in at least 30 towns and cities having so far brought in bans.
The first city to announce the prohibition was Cannes, on August 12, 2016, where mayor David Lisnard said he wanted to prohibit 'beachwear ostentatiously showing a religious affiliation while France and places of religious significance are the target of terror attacks' to avoid 'trouble to public order'.
Dozens of women were issued fines, with some tickets citing not wearing 'an outfit respecting good morals and secularism', and some were verbally attacked by bystanders when they were confronted by the police. There were media reports that in one case armed police forced a woman to remove her clothing on a beach in Nice.
The second commune to announce a burkini ban, Villeneuve-Loubet, stipulated that only clothing that 'is respectful to morality and secular principles, and in compliance with hygiene and safety rules' is to be allowed. Mayor Lionnel Luca cited unspecified 'hygiene reasons' for banning full-body swimwear.
On August 26, the highest court in France, the State Council, overturned the Villeneuve-Loubet ban.
What is a 'burkini'?
The word 'burkini' is a portmanteau formed by combining the words 'burka' and 'bikini'. Although it comes in many different forms, the uniting element of most burkini variations is that they cover everything but the face, hands and feet. The burkini is typically worn by Muslim women who wear the hijab (headscarf) in their daily lives but find it too constrictive and too limiting when they wish to exercise or swim.
In Islam, the principle of awra (privacy, which relates closely to rules for modesty) governs what parts of the body are considered to be intimate for both men and women and, therefore, ought to be covered in the presence of non-family members. The notion of awra varies considerably by the legal opinions within Islam's multiple legal schools and by individual jurists.
While aiming at modesty, the classical Islamic opinions use the notion to advise covering one's private parts. This can be defined as covering all but the hands, face, and feet or covering just the neck to the shins (for women), covering just the area between the torso and knees (for men), or covering the entire body and sometimes even lowering the voice's volume.
As a result, the matter of what constitutes awra, and the preferred means of exercising the due degree of modesty, remains largely a personal matter for most Muslim women reflecting both their familial upbringing and their individual preferences. Understandably, such choices in clothing have made participating in sports activities difficult for some observant women for whom 'awra demands full-body coverage.
These restrictions are not prohibitive, however. There were two Olympic medalists this year who prefer full body coverage: Ibtihaj Muhammad of U.S. fencing and Kimia Alizadeh Zenoozi of Iranian taekwondo.
The aims of the burkini's Australian inventor
The burkini's inventor, Lebanese-Australian designer, Aheda Zanetti, intended the garment to facilitate Muslim women's participation in sports, recreation and even lifeguard training.
To her, it symbolises 'leisure and happiness and fitness and health'. Rather than serving to distance Muslim women from core Australian values, Zanetti believes that her 'modest and suitable for sport' garments will serve to further integrate them because the attire frees the wearer to 'blend into [an] Australian lifestyle' that treasures the great outdoors. In this sense, Zanetti considered the burkini to be both a liberating and an integrating force.
Muslim population in France
France and Germany have the largest Muslim populations in Western Europe with 4.7 million and 4.8 million people, respectively, although France has a greater per capita proportion with about 7.5% of the overall population. Of these, roughly 3 million are foreign-born and hail from former French colonies, such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Many among those have also spent their formative years in France. Although the vast majority of France's Muslim population co-exists peacefully alongside other religious groups and secularists, the high-profile nature of the recent attacks has drawn considerable attention to France's problematic integration policies.
Public safety fears - the context of the burkini bans
On the evening of 14 July 2016, a 19 tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the deaths of 86 people and injuring 434.
Five hours after the attack, French President Fran!ois Hollande announced an extension of the existing state of emergency for a further three months.
On July 16, two agencies linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed that the attack was inspired by their organisation.
Since the Charlie Hebdo Islamist terrorist attacks in January 2015, and the other attacks that took place in Paris in November and in Normandy earlier this year, France has been locked in a perpetual state of alert.
In explaining the motivation behind the burkini ban in Cannes, the head of municipal services, Thierry Migoul, referred to the burkini as a 'symbol of Islamist extremism' that demonstrates 'an allegiance to terrorist movements which are at war with us'. Human rights groups like the Human Rights League (LDH) and the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, for their part, argued that the ban violates fundamental liberties under the French Constitution as well as commonly held European norms.
Legal reaction within France to the burkini bans
On August 26th, France's highest administrative court, the State Council, suspended the ban in a widely anticipated move, ruling that the prohibition on clothing demonstrating an obvious religious affiliation, worn by swimmers on public beaches, 'seriously and clearly illegally breached fundamental freedoms.'
The State Council's decision effectively overturned a ruling by the Nice Tribunal, a lower administrative court, upholding the ban. Although the Council was reviewing a similar case brought in nearby Villeneuve-Loubet, its verdict sets a precedent across the nation that would invalidate the bans instituted by 30 French municipalities earlier this summer, including both Nice and Cannes.
The Nice Tribunal had previously held that the ban on full-body swimwear for women served a 'necessary, appropriate and proportionate' purpose in preventing the spread of Islamic extremism and, in turn, safeguarding its citizenry.
Procedurally the Council's suspension of the ban is not automatic, as many mayors have declared that they will continue to enforce their bans until directly challenged in court.
On September 6, 2016, a Corsican court ruled in favour of a ban on burkinis previously placed by Sisco.