The pilot episode of World on Trial examines the legality of France’s 2004 law which forbids, in primary and secondary public schools, the wearing of religious signs or symbols that conspicuously exhibit a religious affiliation. France is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). According to the ICCPR, everyone shall have the right to freedom of religion and the right to manifest one’s religion in public. However, under the ICCPR, freedom of religion is not absolute. A nation may restrict the right to freedom of religion to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

In World on Trial, the challengers of the “headscarf ban” argue the French law is an improper infringement on the right of Muslim school girls to wear their headscarves. The defenders of the law contend that the law falls into the exception provided in the ICCPR. The defenders argue the law is necessary to protect Muslim women and girls who are forced to wear a veil, sometimes violently, by fundamentalist Muslim fathers, brothers and community leaders.

Should the law be stricken as a discriminatory and inhospitable “Islamophobic” effort to forbid Muslim girls in public schools from expressing their religious beliefs? Or, should the law be upheld as an appropriate mechanism of preserving French secularism in the public arena, with an important ancillary benefit of allowing Muslim girls who choose not to veil to be secure in their choice, at least in public schools?

witf will be airing France's Headscarf Law on February 23 at 8 p.m.