In June 2019, the Belgian Constitutional Court ruled that public institutions, including colleges and universities, could prohibit the wearing of religious symbols without violating the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) mandate of free exercise of religion. … With the ruling, the Belgian court endorsed what the French National Assembly had established fifteen years earlier. It held that the hijab was a deviant mode of expression and a cultural practice that fell outside the bounds of religious freedom.

XREF: Relates to French laïcité policies and broader debates about secularism versus religious expression in Europe, including Turkey and Switzerland.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 829