The bans come in the wake of a string of Islamist attacks to hit France over the past 18 months.
The bans come in the wake of a string of Islamist attacks to hit France over the past 18 months.
Geneva: The UN on Tuesday welcomed a decision by France's highest administrative court to suspend a controversial ban on burkini swimwear, warning that the ban had fuelled religious intolerance and stigmatisation.
-"These decrees do not improve the security situation but rather fuel religious intolerance and the stigmatisation of Muslims in France, especially women,-" Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN rights office, told reporters.
-"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,-" he said.
He also decried that -"the manner in which the anti-burkini decrees have been implemented in some French resorts has been humiliating and degrading.-"
Around 30 coastal resorts have recently banned women from wearing the full-body swimwear on their beaches, although France's highest administrative court on Friday overturned the measure in one town, in a ruling likely to set a legal precedent which will affect the others.
The bans come in the wake of a string of Islamist attacks to hit France over the past 18 months, which have raised questions over security failures and resulted in a spike in Islamophobia.
Colville said the UN rights office welcomed the ruling affecting the seaside town of Villeneuve-Loubet, urging authorities in other French seaside towns and resorts that had adopted similar bans -"to repeal them immediately.-"
He stressed that the bans would do nothing to make people safer.
-"Clearly, individuals wearing burkinis, or any other form of clothing for that matter, cannot be blamed for the violent or hostile reactions of others,-" he said.
He warned that -"by stimulating polarisation between communities, these clothing bans have only succeeded in increasing tensions ... (and may) undermine the effort to fight and prevent violent extremism.-"
Colville pointed out that according to international human rights standards, -"limitations on manifestations of religion or belief, including choice of clothing, are only permitted in very limited circumstances, including public safety, public order, and public health or morals.-"
Such measures, he said, -"must be appropriate, necessary, and proportionate.-"
-"Gender equality cannot be achieved by restricting individual freedoms including by policing what individual women choose to wear,-" he said.
