Ankara, Turkey - The top European court of human rights has ruled that a complaint filed by a university student in Turkey is not admissible, thereby once again upholding the ban on wearing headscarves in the country's schools and state buildings.
In 1998, complainant Emine Araç wanted to use a photograph showing her with a headscarf during procedures for registration at Istanbul's Marmara University Faculty of Theology. After being refused by the university, Araç took her case to the administrative courts and the Council of State, where it was rejected. She then appealed those verdicts at the European Court of Human Rights
The Strasbourg based-court has declared Araç's file inadmissible, NTV news channel reported on Monday.
The statutory obligation to register at university with a photograph in which a headscarf is not worn does not constitute any obstacle to perform one's religious duties, the court said in its legal basis for finding the file inadmissible, NTV said. The court ruled that the headscarf ban in Turkey did not contradict the European Convention on Human Rights.
In February this year, the court had refused to hear two headscarf cases from Turkey. Then the court reiterated that the headscarf ban in Turkey did not contradict the European Convention on Human Rights.
The court based its ruling on a previous headscarf decision against Leyla Şahin. Analysts have said that the court's 2005 judgment on Şahin will set a precedent in similar headscarf-related cases.
Sahin had to leave university in 1998 because the school declined to admit her after she refused to stop wearing a headscarf. The court's Grand Chamber ruled in 2005 that the ban did not violate the right to freedom of thought, conscience or religion guaranteed by an international human rights treaty.
The ruling was in response to an appeal by Şahin against an earlier ruling from a lower chamber of the court, which found the headscarf ban was in place to protect the rights and freedoms of all students and safeguard public order.
In its rulings the European court also referred to the headscarf decisions made by the Constitutional Court and the Council of State in Turkey, and analysts say that decisions on the headscarf made by the Turkish courts were adopted by the Strasbourg court.