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GENEVA / BURKINI
STORY: GENEVA / BURKINI
TRT: 2:36
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: FRENCH / ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 30 AUGUST 2016 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior, Palais des Nations
2. SOUNDBITE (French) Cecile Pouilly, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“OHCHR welcomes the decision of the Conseil d’Etat which was taken last Friday and which suspends the prohibition of wearing Burkini as decided by the municipality of Villeneuve-Loubet."
3. Med shot, Cecile Pouille talking with journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (French) Cecile Pouilly, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
"This ban, this anti-Burkini decree, constitutes an unlawful interference with individual freedom and it is a serious attack. You know, international law and international human rights law stipulate that it is possible to limit the way we manifest these beliefs, our religion including the choice of clothing but in an extremely limited way, especially for reasons of public order, public safety, morality or public health. But these are very limited reasons and we do not seem to see them match the reality as described by the mentioned anti-Burkini decree.”
5. Pan right, Palais des Nations
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Cecile Pouilly, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“We believe to achieve gender equality we must not limit individual freedom, but rather create an environment where women can make free choices and remove barriers and have a better understanding of them, before all, and then remove them and give women the right to make fully independent decisions including how they choose to dress.”
7. Close up, UN Globe
8. Wide shot, pan from Cecile Pouilly to Palais des Nations
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Rupert Colville, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“These decrees do not improve the security situation but rather fuel religious intolerance and the stigmatization of Muslims in France, especially women. By stimulating polarization between communities, these clothing bans have only succeeded in increasing tensions and as a result may actually undermine the effort to fight and prevent violent extremism, which depends on cooperation and mutual respect between communities."
10. Med shot, journalists
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Rupert Colville, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“Dress codes such as the anti-burkini decrees disproportionately affect women and girls, undermining their autonomy by denying them the ability to make independent decisions about how to dress, and clearly discriminate against them. In addition, as has been widely noted, the manner in which the anti-burkini decrees have been implemented in some French resorts has been humiliating and degrading”.
12. Med shot, journalists
The United Nations (UN) office for human rights (OHCHR) welcomed the decision by the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest administrative court, to suspend the ban adopted in the seaside resort of Villeneuve-Loubet on supposedly inappropriate beachwear – which had been widely interpreted as targeting the burkini and other forms of dress worn by Muslim women.
OHCHR spokesperson Cecile Pouilly told reporters in Geneva today that the ban, "this anti-burkini decree, constitutes an unlawful interference with individual freedom as a serious attack," adding that,
"international law and human rights law stipulate that it is possible to limit the way we manifest these beliefs, religion including the choice of clothing but in an extremely limited way, especially for reasons of public order, public safety, morality or public health." She said, "these are very limited reasons and we do not seem to see them match the reality as described by this anti-burkini decree.”
The High Commission says that dress codes, including regulations such as the anti-burkini decree, can cause distress to women and girls. “We believe to achieve gender equality we must not limit individual freedom, but rather create an environment where women can make free choices and remove barriers and have a better understanding of them, before all, and then remove them and give women the right to make fully independent decisions including how they choose to dress," Pouilly said.
Rupert Colville, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) highlighted that “these decrees do not improve the security situation but rather fuel religious intolerance and the stigmatization of Muslims in France, especially women. By stimulating polarization between communities, these clothing bans have only succeeded in increasing tensions and as a result may actually undermine the effort to fight and prevent violent extremism, which depends on cooperation and mutual respect between communities”.
Regarding the dress codes he said that the “anti-burkini decrees disproportionately affect women and girls, undermining their autonomy by denying them the ability to make independent decisions about how to dress, and clearly discriminate against them. In addition, as has been widely noted, the manner in which the anti-burkini decrees have been implemented in some French resorts has been humiliating and degrading”.
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