EU court's headscarf ruling 'violation of human rights'

By Kemal Karadag, Omer Ertugrul and Serhat Zafer

ANKARA

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag has called a European Union court's ruling allowing employers to prevent workers from wearing religious symbols, including headscarves worn by certain Muslim women, a violation of human rights.

"Forcing people to choose between religious beliefs and their jobs doesn't comply with either human rights or EU values nor with law and justice," Bozdag tweeted Wednesday.

"Banning the headscarf as a 'workplace rule' is an indisputable violation of human rights, freedom of thought and faith as well as the right to work."

According to the minister, neither increasing racism and discrimination nor Islamophobia and xenophobia on the continent are acceptable excuses for European courts to violate fairness. He described the latest move as the "apocalypse of justice".

The posts came after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Tuesday that employers can prevent their workers from wearing any religious symbol -- including headscarves.

In a ruling on two separate appeals made by Belgium and France over the headscarf ban, the court said companies could bar staff from "visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign".

The EU court further said the decision to ban such symbols at workplaces was not discriminatory.

Later Wednesday, Bozdag told reporters in the central Turkish city of Yozgat that the highest authority for the protection of common European law had only managed to "bomb" its own laws and values.

"I feel sorry for them," he said. "As a legal expert, I condemn those who made this decision."