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Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project

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A rising tide of restrictions on religion spread across the world between mid-2009 and mid-2010, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Restrictions on religion rose in each of the five major regions of the world - including in the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa, the two regions where overall restrictions previously had been declining.

The share of countries with high or very high restrictions on religious beliefs and practices rose from 31% in the year ending in mid-2009 to 37% in the year ending in mid-2010. Because some of the most restrictive countries are very populous, three-quarters of the world's approximately 7 billion people live in countries with high government restrictions on religion or high social hostilities involving religion, up from 70% a year earlier.

Restrictions on religion rose not only in countries that began the year with high or very high restrictions or hostilities, such as Indonesia and Nigeria, but also in many countries that began with low or moderate restrictions or hostilities, such as Switzerland and the United States. (See sidebar on the U.S..)

The rising tide of restrictions in the latest year studied is attributable to a variety of factors, including increases in crimes, malicious acts and violence motivated by religious hatred or bias, as well as increased government interference with worship or other religious practices. For instance, a November 2009 constitutional referendum in Switzerland banned the construction of minarets on mosques in the country. In Indonesia, more than two dozen churches were forced to close due to pressure from Islamist extremists or, in some instances, local officials. And in Nigeria, violence between Christian and Muslim communities, including a series of deadly attacks, escalated throughout the period.

During the latest year covered in the study, there also was an increase in harassment or intimidation of particular religious groups. Indeed, five of the seven major religious groups monitored by the study - Jews, Christians, Buddhists, adherents of folk or traditional religions, and members of other world religions - experienced four-year highs in the number of countries in which they were harassed by national, provincial or local governments, or by individuals or groups in society (for details, see Harassment of Specific Groups).

This is the third time the Pew Forum has measured restrictions on religion around the globe. The new study scores 197 countries and territories on the same two indexes used in the previous studies:

The Government Restrictions Index (GRI) measures government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs or practices. The GRI is comprised of 20 measures of restrictions, including efforts by governments to ban particular faiths, prohibit conversions, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups.

The Social Hostilities Index (SHI) measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations and social groups. This includes mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire for religious reasons and other religion-related intimidation or abuse. The SHI includes 13 measures of social hostilities.

Over the four years studied, the number of countries with very high government restrictions on religion rose from 10 as of mid-2007 to 18 as of mid-2010, as a total of 10 countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Indonesia, Maldives, Russia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen) were added to the "very high" category, while just two (Brunei and Turkey) were removed (see table on page 10). Meanwhile, 94 countries (48%) had low levels of government restrictions as of mid-2010, down from 117 (59%) in the first year of the study. (For a complete list of all countries in each category, see the Government Restrictions Index table PDF .)

The number of countries with very high social hostilities also rose, from 10 as of mid-2007 to 15 as of mid-2010, as five countries (Egypt, Nigeria, the Palestinian territories, Russia and Yemen) were added to the "very high" category and none were removed (see table above). Meanwhile, half of the 197 countries in the study (98) had low levels of social hostilities in mid-2010, down from 114 in mid-2007. (For a complete list of all countries in each category, see the Social Hostilities Index table PDF.)

Changes in Government Restrictions

In addition to scoring countries on both indexes, the study looks at the extent and direction of change within each country from the year ending in mid-2009 to the year ending in mid-2010.

Just six countries (3%) had large changes (2.0 points or more) in their scores on the 10-point Government Restrictions Index, and all six (Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Fiji, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Tunisia) were in the direction of higher restrictions. Among countries with modest changes (1.0 to 1.9 points), there were many more increases (30) than decreases (13). And the same was true among countries with small changes (less than 1.0 point): 88 had increases, while 37 had decreases.

Considering all changes, regardless of magnitude, 63% of countries had increases in government restrictions from mid-2009 to mid-2010, while 25% had decreases. The level of increase in government restrictions during the latest year studied exceeds the increase over the previous three years, when 56% of countries had increases and 31% had decreases.

Changes in Social Hostilities

Increases in social hostilities involving religion also outnumbered decreases in each point range. Among the countries whose scores went up or down by 2.0 points or more on the 10-point Social Hostilities Index, four times as many had increases in hostilities (17) as had decreases (four). Twenty-five countries had increases of between 1.0 and 1.9 points in their SHI scores, while just 15 had decreases in that range. And 55 countries had increases of less than 1.0 point, while 44 had decreases of that size.

Considering changes of any magnitude, 49% of countries had increases in hostilities from mid-2009 to mid-2010, while 32% had decreases. During the three previous years, by contrast, 44% of countries had increases in hostilities and 39% had decreases.

Changes in Overall Restrictions

Considering government restrictions and social hostilities together, increases outnumbered decreases in each point range from mid-2009 to mid-2010. Among countries whose scores went up or down by 2.0 points or more on either of the indexes after taking into account any offsetting change on the other index, six times as many countries had increases (18) as decreases (three).

Overall, restrictions increased at least somewhat in 66% of countries and decreased in 28% between mid-2009 and mid-2010. As was the case when the two indexes were considered separately, this exceeds the increase during the preceding three years, when 56% of countries had increases and 39% had decreases.
Sidebar: Situation in the United States
The United States was among the 16 countries whose scores on both the Government Restrictions Index and the Social Hostilities Index increased by one point or more in the year ending in mid-2010. This was the first time scores for the U.S. increased on both indexes during the four-year period covered in this study.

Rising Government Restrictions

Based on the information in the sources consulted for this study, the U.S. score on the Government Restrictions Index rose from 1.6 in the year ending in mid-2009 to 2.7 in the year ending in mid-2010, moving the U.S. from the low category of restrictions to the moderate category for the first time in the four years studied. (GRI scores 2.4 or higher are categorized as moderate by this study, while scores 4.5 or higher are categorized as high.)

During the period from mid-2009 to mid-2010, a number of the sources used in the study reported an increase in the number of incidents at the state and local level in which members of some religious groups faced restrictions on their ability to practice their faith. This included incidents in which individuals were prevented from wearing certain religious attire or symbols, including beards, in some judicial settings or in prisons, penitentiaries or other correctional facilities. For instance, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that it was pursuing a lawsuit in federal court against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and various California officials on behalf of a Sikh prison inmate who, in March 2010, had been ordered to trim his facial hair in violation of his religious beliefs. The Justice Department said the state's inmate grooming policy "imposed a substantial burden" on the man's ability to exercise his faith.

Some religious groups in the U.S. also faced difficulties in obtaining zoning permits to build or expand houses of worship, religious schools or other religious institutions. For instance, in May 2010, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that the Boulder County Commissioners had discriminated against the Rocky Mountain Christian Church by denying it permits to expand its school and worship facilities even though the commissioners had issued permits to a nearby secular school for a similar expansion. The appeals court agreed with the lower court that the commissioners' actions violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), which protects individuals and institutions from religious discrimination in land-use decisions and protects the religious rights of prisoners and other persons confined to institutions. The Justice Department - in a report marking the 10th anniversary of the passage of RLUIPA - noted that 31 of its 51 land-use investigations from 2000-2010 involved Christian groups; most of the remaining 20 investigations involved religious minorities, including Muslims (seven investigations), Jews (six), Buddhists (three) and Hindus (one).

From mid-2009 to mid-2010, at least one state sought to restrict the application of Islamic or sharia law. In the spring of 2010, Oklahoma legislators proposed an amendment to the state constitution that would have banned state courts from considering sharia law or international law in their decisions. (The constitutional change was later approved in a statewide vote, but a federal appeals court struck down the amendment in January 2012, saying it violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.)

And, for the first time, one of the primary sources used in this study reported that some level of government in the U.S. had imposed limits on conversion. A report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief mentions an incident at the Southport Correctional Facility, an ultra-maximum security prison near Elmira, N.Y., in which a prisoner was denied the right to change his religious designation to Muslim. The inmate complained that he could not participate in Ramadan observances without an official change to his religious designation in the New York Department of Correctional Services' records.

Rising Social Hostilities Involving Religion

The U.S. score on the Social Hostilities Index also rose, from 2.0 as of mid-2009 to 3.4 as of mid-2010, moving the U.S. from the lower end of the moderate range of hostilities to the upper end of the moderate range. (Social Hostilities Index scores 3.6 or higher are categorized as high by this study.)

A key factor behind the increase in the U.S. score on the Social Hostilities Index was a spike in religion-related terrorist attacks in the United States in the year ending in mid-2010. In November 2009, for instance, U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan - allegedly inspired by the U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki - gunned down and killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas. In December 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, attempted to set off a bomb hidden in his underwear while aboard a Detroit-bound aircraft. And in May 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born resident of Bridgeport, Conn., attempted to set off a bomb in New York's Times Square.

Other forms of social hostilities involving religion also increased in the U.S. during the most recent year studied. In Murfreesboro, Tenn., for example, some county residents attempted to block the construction of a mosque in the spring of 2010 by claiming, as reported by the Justice Department, that Islam is a "political ideology rather than a religion" and that "mosques are political rather than religious in nature." (The mosque officially opened in August 2012, but opponents are still challenging the mosque in federal court.)

The increase in social hostilities in the U.S. also reflects a rise in the number of reported religion-related workplace discrimination complaints. The number of such complaints filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rose from 3,386 in the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2009, to 3,790 in the year ending on Sept. 30, 2010. The number of cases that the EEOC determined had "reasonable cause" rose from 136 to 314 during this period.
Footnotes:
1 The other countries were Angola, Brunei, Chad, Germany, Greece, Guinea, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Republic of Macedonia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. (return to text)

2 For more information, see U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. March 2011. "DOJ Files RLUIPA Suit on Behalf of Sikh Inmate." Religious Freedom in Focus, vol. 45. Also see Complaint in Intervention Pursuant to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc (Civil Rights), No. CVII-01676 SVW (FMOx). (return to text)

3 For more information, see the decision in Rocky Mountain Christian Church v. Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County Colorado. Boulder County appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, leaving intact the 10th Circuit's decision that Boulder County had unfairly discriminated against the church. For more information, see the "Proceedings and Orders" on the Supreme Court's website. (return to text)

8 The N.Y. Department of Correctional Services' Directive 4202 allows inmates to apply for changes to their religious designation but limits when and how often such changes are permitted once an inmate is confined. For more information on this case, see U.N. Human Rights Council. Feb. 14, 2011. "Report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, Addendum: Summary of cases transmitted to Governments and replies received." Doc. A/HRC /16/53/Add.1. (return to text)

9 For more information, see The New York Times. Sept. 7, 2012. "Times Topics: Nidal Malik Hasan." In August 2012 (outside the period covered in this study), Hasan's trial was put on hold while a military court considered his objections to being forced to shave his beard, which he says would violate his Muslim faith. On Sept. 6, 2012, a military judge ruled that forcible shaving would not violate Hasan's right to freely exercise his faith. Hasan's lawyers were expected to appeal the ruling, and the case remained on hold. See Fernandez, Manny. Sept. 6, 2012. "Fort Hood Shooting Suspect's Beard Must Be Shaved, Military Judge Rules." The New York Times. (return to text)
Patterns among Specific Types of Restrictions and Hostilities
As noted in previous Pew Forum studies on religious restrictions, higher scores on the Government Restrictions Index are associated with higher scores on the Social Hostilities Index and vice versa. This means that, in general, it is rare for countries that score high on one index to be low on the other.

The new study finds that some government restrictions have a stronger association with social hostilities than others. Government policies or actions that clearly favor one religion over others have the strongest association with social hostilities involving religion. The average level of social hostilities among the countries with very high levels of government favoritism (SHI = 4.8) is much higher than the average level of social hostilities among countries with low levels of government favoritism (1.3), as shown in the chart on page 20. Other government actions that are strongly associated with social hostilities involving religion are (in descending order): the use of force against religious groups; failing to intervene to stop religious discrimination; and limiting conversion from one religion to another.

As the chart below shows, social hostilities involving religion were lowest among countries where governments do not harass or intimidate religious groups; national laws and policies protect religious freedom; governments do not interfere with religious worship or practices; and governments do not use force against religious groups.

Likewise, certain types of social hostilities involving religion are more likely to be associated with higher government restrictions on religion. Sectarian or communal violence between religious groups has the strongest association with government restrictions on religion. The average level of government restrictions among the countries with sectarian violence (GRI = 5.0) is much higher than among countries without such violence (2.4), as shown in the chart on page 21. Other social hostilities that are strongly associated with government restrictions are (in descending order): hostilities over conversion from one religion to another; violence or the threat of violence to enforce religious norms; religion-related terrorist violence; and groups coercively dominating public life with their perspective on religion.

As shown in the chart below, government restrictions are, on average, lowest in countries where there are no violent acts resulting from tensions between religious groups; there are no crimes or malicious acts motivated by religious hatred; there are no groups dominating public life with their perspective on religion; and there are no incidents of violence stemming from hostility over conversions.
Harassment of Specific Groups
The Government Restrictions Index and Social Hostilities Index each include a question about the harassment of specific religious groups (GRI Q.11 and SHI Q.1a). Harassment and intimidation by governments or social groups take many forms, including physical assaults, arrests and detentions, the desecration of holy sites and discrimination against religious groups in employment, education and housing. Harassment and intimidation also include such things as verbal assaults on members of one religious group by other groups or individuals.

The number of countries where harassment or intimidation of specific religious groups took place rose from 147 as of mid-2009 to 160 as of mid-2010. Moreover, five of the seven major religious groups included in this study - Christians, Jews, Buddhists, adherents of folk or traditional religions, and members of other world religions - experienced four-year highs with respect to the number of countries in which they were harassed by some level of government or by individuals or groups in society.

In the year ending in mid-2010, government or social harassment of Christians was reported in 111 countries; the previous high was 107 countries in the first year of the study. Government or social harassment of Jews was reported in 68 countries in the year ending in mid-2010, a figure that had been steadily rising across all four years of the study. Incidents of harassment involving members of other world religions - including Sikhs, ancient faiths such as Zoroastrianism, and newer faiths such as Baha'is and Rastafarians - occurred in 52 countries in the year ending in mid-2010, up from 39 countries the previous year. Members of groups that practice folk or traditional religions (including African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions and Australian aboriginal religions) faced harassment in 26 countries, compared with 24 in the previous year. Buddhists were harassed in 15 countries in the latest year studied; although this is far fewer than most other major religious groups, it represents a four-year high for this group. In the latest year of the study, Muslims were harassed in 90 countries and Hindus faced harassment in 16 countries - also more countries than in the previous year, though not four-year highs.

Overall, across the four years of this study, religious groups were harassed in a total of 184 countries at one time or another. Adherents of the world's two largest religious groups, Christians and Muslims - who together comprise more than half of the global population - were harassed in the largest number of countries. Jews, who comprise less than 1% of the world's population, experienced harassment in a total of 85 countries, while members of other world faiths were harassed in a total of 72 countries.

Some religious groups were more likely to be harassed by governments, while others were more likely to be harassed by individuals or groups in society. Christians, for example, were harassed by government officials or organizations in 95 countries in the year ending in mid-2010 and by social groups or individuals in 77 countries. Muslims also were more likely to be harassed by governments (74 countries) than by social groups or individuals (64 countries). Jews, by contrast, experienced social harassment in many more countries (64) than they faced government harassment (21).
Regions and Countries
Government restrictions on religion and/or social hostilities involving religion increased in each of the five major regions of the world between mid-2009 and mid-2010. In three regions - Europe, the Middle East-North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa - the median level of restrictions and hostilities both increased. In the Americas, the median level of government restrictions increased, while in the Asia-Pacific region, the median level of social hostilities increased.

Looking at the extent and direction of change on the Government Restrictions Index and the Social Hostilities Index together, increases of one point or more outnumbered decreases of that magnitude in all five regions, as shown in the chart on page 25. Sub-Saharan Africa had the largest share of countries with increases of one point or more (36%). Europe and the Americas had the lowest proportion of countries where overall restrictions increased by one point or more (22% and 23%, respectively).

Government Restrictions by Region

The median level of government restrictions on religion increased in four of the five regions demarcated in this study (the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas); it stayed roughly the same in the Asia-Pacific region.

In the latest year studied, government restrictions were highest in the Middle East and North Africa. The median score on the Government Restrictions Index for the 20 countries in the region (5.8 as of mid-2010) was up from the previous year (5.2).

As of mid-2010, government restrictions on religion were high or very high in most of the countries that experienced the political uprisings known as the Arab Spring in late 2010 and early 2011. In Tunisia - where the uprisings began - government restrictions increased from the high category as of mid-2009 to the very high category as of mid-2010 (an increase of more than two points). In Egypt - where the violence spread shortly after - government restrictions already were in the very high category; still, the country's score on the Government Restrictions Index edged slightly higher, from 8.6 in mid-2009 to 8.7 in mid-2010. And in Yemen - where violence erupted almost simultaneously with the uprising in Egypt - government restrictions on religion rose from the high category (6.4) as of mid-2009 to the very high category (7.0) as of mid-2010.

The 50 countries in the Asia-Pacific region had a median GRI score in the middle range (3.4) as of mid-2010, the same as the previous year. However, half of the 18 countries worldwide with very high government restrictions on religion are located in the region: Indonesia, Maldives, Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Burma (Myanmar), Vietnam and Azerbaijan.

Median scores on the Government Restrictions Index for countries in Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas rose slightly from mid-2009 to mid-2010. Although the median level of government restrictions in the Americas was relatively low (1.2 as of mid-2010), one country, Cuba, had high restrictions. Eight other countries in the region, including the United States, were in the moderate category. (See sidebar on the Situation in the United States.)
Social Hostilities by Region
The median level of social hostilities involving religion also increased in four of the five regions (the Middle East and North Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa); it stayed roughly the same in the Americas.

As with government restrictions, social hostilities involving religion were highest in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the region's median score on the Social Hostilities Index rose only slightly, from 4.2 as of mid-2009 to 4.3 as of mid-2010.

The median level of social hostilities in the Americas remained low, unchanged from mid-2009 to mid-2010. Only one of the 35 countries in the region - Mexico - had high social hostilities, and 29 (83%) had low hostilities. Five countries in the region (United States, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti and Chile) were in the moderate category; however, all but one of these countries, Colombia, had increases of one point or more on the Social Hostilities Index. Columbia's score decreased by 0.2. (See sidebar on the Situation in the United States.)
Restrictions and Hostilities in the Most Populous Countries
Among the world's 25 most populous countries, Egypt, Indonesia, Russia, Burma (Myanmar), Iran, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nigeria stand out as having the most restrictions on religion as of mid-2010 when government restrictions and social hostilities both are taken into account. Brazil, Japan, Italy, the United States and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have the least restrictions and hostilities.

None of the 25 most populous countries had low social hostilities involving religion as of mid-2010, while four had low government restrictions on religion: South Africa, Brazil, Philippines and Japan. As discussed in the sidebar on page 15, the United States moved from the low category of government restrictions in mid-2009 to the moderate category in 2010, based on the information in the sources consulted for this study.

Government restrictions and/or social hostilities increased by one point or more in several European countries from mid-2009 to mid-2010, including Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. (See Government Restrictions Index table PDF on and Social Hostilities Index table PDF.) Russia moved from the high category of social hostilities in mid-2009 to the very high category in mid-2010, primarily because of increasing tensions in heavily Muslim areas. Russia already had very high government restrictions. Indeed, Russia was the only European country with very high scores on both the Government Restrictions Index and the Social Hostilities Index in the latest year studied. (To compare scores for each of the 25 most populous countries in all four years covered in this study, see the interactive feature below.) [Note: this scatterplot has been updated to reflect scores from 2013, our latest report.]

Note: For 2007-2010, the index scores are for the 12-month period ending in June of that year. For 2011-14, the index scores are for the calendar year. The center of each circle is positioned on the average index score for each country.

Source: Pew Research Center analysis of external data. See Methodology for details." Trends in Global Restrictions on Religion"

About the Study
These are among the key findings of the Pew Forum's new report on global restrictions on religion. The 197 countries and self-administering territories covered by the study contain more than 99.5% of the world's population. They include 191 of the 192 member states of the United Nations as of mid-2010 plus six self-administering territories - Kosovo, Hong Kong, Macau, the Palestinian territories, Taiwan and Western Sahara. Each country or territory was scored on a total of 33 measures phrased as questions about government restrictions or social hostilities involving religion. (For the full question wording, see the Summary of Results.) The Government Restrictions Index is comprised of 20 questions; there are 13 questions on the Social Hostilities Index.

To answer the questions that make up the indexes, Pew Forum researchers combed through 19 widely cited, publicly available sources of information, including reports by the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the Council of the European Union, the United Kingdom's Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, Freedom House and Amnesty International. (For the complete list of sources, see the Methodology.)

The researchers involved in this process recorded only concrete reports about specific government laws, policies and actions, as well as specific incidents of religious violence or intolerance by social groups; they did not rely on the commentaries or opinions of the sources. (For a more detailed explanation of the coding and data verification procedures, see the Methodology.) The goal was to devise a battery of quantifiable, objective measures that could be analyzed individually as well as combined into two comprehensive indexes, the Government Restrictions Index and the Social Hostilities Index.

Some of the increases in religious restrictions noted in this study could reflect the use of more up-to-date or better information sources, but there is no evidence of a general informational bias in the direction of higher restrictions. For instance, the social hostilities sections of the U.S. State Department's annual reports on International Religious Freedom (one of the 19 primary sources used in this study) in general have gotten shorter in more recent years. Pew Forum staff carefully monitor the impact of source information variability each year. (See the Methodology for more details.)

Readers should note that the categories of very high, high, moderate and low restrictions or hostilities are relative - not absolute - rankings based on the overall distribution of index scores in the initial year of this study. As such, they provide a guide for comparing country scores and evaluating their direction of change over time. They also reflect the number and severity of different restrictions or hostilities that occurred in a given year in any part of the country. Accordingly, more populous countries may have a higher likelihood of scoring higher than less populous countries, though in practice, some countries with very high levels of restrictions or hostilities have relatively small populations, such as the Maldives and the Palestinian territories.

Finally, although it is very likely that more restrictions exist than are reported by the 19 primary sources, taken together the sources are sufficiently comprehensive to provide a good estimate of the levels of restrictions in almost all countries. The one major exception is North Korea. The sources clearly indicate that North Korea's government is among the most repressive in the world with respect to religion as well as other civil and political liberties. (The U.S. State Department's 2010 Report on International Religious Freedom, for example, says that "Genuine freedom of religion does not exist" in North Korea.) But because North Korean society is effectively closed to outsiders and independent observers lack regular access to the country, the sources were unable to provide the kind of specific, timely information that the Pew Forum categorized and counted ("coded," in social science parlance) for this quantitative study. Therefore, the report does not include scores for North Korea.
Footnotes:
1 Previous reports provided a score for the territory of Northern Cyprus and therefore included 198 countries and territories. According to the U.S. State Department, only one country - Turkey - recognizes the separate status of Northern Cyprus. Thus, future reports will score Northern Cyprus as part of the Republic of Cyprus. The exclusion of Northern Cyprus in this report has a negligible effect on the global and regional findings. In addition, a single index score was recorded for all of Sudan for this report because South Sudan remained a part of Sudan until July 2011, which is after the period studied in this report. (Return to text)

2 The 17 countries that had increases of 2.0 points or more were: Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Cyprus, France, Ivory Coast, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda and the United Kingdom. The four countries that had decreases of 2.0 points or more were Comoros, Denmark, Slovakia and Western Sahara. (Return to text)

3 The 18 countries that had an increase of 2.0 points or more were: Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cyprus, Ivory Coast, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Nicaragua, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and the United Kingdom. The three countries that had decreases of 2.0 points or more were Comoros, Denmark and Slovakia. (Return to text)

4 Ordering is based on second decimal places when scores are tied. (Return to text)

5 Ordering is based on second decimal places when scores are tied. (Return to text)

6 For estimates of the size of the global Christian population, see the Pew Forum's 2011 report, "Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population." For estimates of the size of the global Muslim population, see the Pew Forum's 2011 report, "The Future of the Global Muslim Population." (Return to text)

7 As previously noted, this report does not include scores for the territory of Northern Cyprus or North Korea. (Return to text)

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Between mid-2009 and mid-2010, religious restrictions rose not only in countries that began the year with high or very high restrictions, such as Indonesia and Nigeria, but also in many countries that began with low or moderate restrictions, such as Switzerland and the United States.

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Welcome to DoSomething.org, a global movement of millions of young people making positive change, online and off! The 11 facts you want are below, and the sources for the facts are at the very bottom of the page. After you learn something, Do Something! Find out how to take action here.

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Canadian Civil Liberties Association (chapters in Moncton, Montreal, Kingston, Regina, Saint John, Vancouver, Timmins, Fredericton, London)

In 1964, the Progressive Conservative government of Ontario introduced Bill 99, one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in the province's history. In response to concerns raised by the provincial Police Commission about the level of organized crime in Ontario, Attorney General Frank Cass sought to provide it with special powers to detain and interrogate suspected members of criminal associations. If enacted, Bill 99 would have allowed the Police Commission to detain individuals without notifying their next of kin, to deny them access to legal counsel, and to jail them for eight days if they refused to testify before the commission. Bail and the right to appeal could also be withheld. Those who refused to cooperate could be held in jail almost indefinitely for consecutive eight-day periods, and anyone who revealed information that had been presented before the commission was subject to a $2,000 fine and a year in prison. Liberal Opposition leader Farquhar Oliver demanded that the government retract the bill or call an immediate election. In Ottawa, J.W. Pickersgill suggested that Bill 99 made Quebec's Padlock Act look like a bill of rights. Soon thereafter, the bill was retracted, the attorney general was replaced, and a royal commission on civil rights was appointed.

Bill 99 was the birth mother of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), which was incorporated in 1964. Initially, the CCLA was a national body in name only. Its precursor was the Association for Civil Liberties, which was led by Irving Himel, a Jewish lawyer. He had envisioned the Association for Civil Liberties as a national rights organization, though it spent most of its time working to secure anti-discrimination legislation in Ontario. In the wake of Bill 99, Himel called together a group of well-known Toronto personalities to form a rejuvenated rights association. Among its leaders were writers Pierre Berton and June Callwood as well as lawyers and law professors Bora Laskin, Mark MacGuigan, and Harry Arthurs. Its honorary president was former lieutenant governor Keiller Mackay, the Ontario Supreme Court judge who had famously struck down restrictive covenants in his 1947 Re Drummond Wren decision.

The CCLA soon established itself as one of the most active rights associations in Canada. In 1968, it secured a major grant from the Ford Foundation to study due process in lower courts across the country, and the resulting report, which guided its national advocacy program for years, highlighted such problems as the lack of legal counsel available to arrestees and long trial delays. Two years later, the CCLA distinguished itself, as did the BC Civil Liberties Association, as one of the few groups in English Canada to criticize the October 1970 invocation of the War Measures Act. Months later, it successfully lobbied the federal government not to implement war-powers legislation during peacetime emergencies.

In 1977, Ottawa created a royal commission to investigate allegations that the RCMP was illegally opening mail at Canada Post and that it had raided the offices of the Parti Québécois to copy its membership lists. During the commission's investigation, the CCLA was one of the most vocal social movement organizations to call on the government to prosecute offending officers. Perhaps its most enduring work for the rights movement came with the hearings of the Special Joint Committee on the Constitution in 1980-81. When Minister of Justice Jean Chrétien introduced his revisions to the government's proposal for a charter of rights and freedoms in 1981, the CCLA received extensive credit for having influenced most of his alterations. In fact, except for those of the Canadian Bar Association, the CCLA recommendations received more attention in Chrétien's report than those of any other organization.

Further Reading

Borovoy, Alan. At the Barricades: A Memoir. Toronto: Irwin Law, 2013.

Borovoy, Alan. Uncivil Obedience: The Tactics and Tales of a Democratic Agitator. Toronto: Lester, 1991.

Borovoy, Alan. When Freedoms Collide: The Case for Our Civil Liberties. Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1988.

Clément, Dominique. Canada's Rights Revolution: Social Movements and Social Change, 1937-82. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008.

Clément, Dominique. " An Exercise in Futility? Regionalism, State Funding and Ideology as Obstacles to the Formation of a National Social Movement Organization in Canada." BC Studies 146 (2005): 63-91.

Thompson, Andrew S. In Defence of Principles: NGOs and Human Rights in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
Archives
CCLA papers are available at Library and Archives Canada.

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Case Study: Canadian Civil Liberties Association

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Canadian Civil Liberties Association (chapters in Moncton, Montreal, Kingston, Regina, Saint John, Vancouver, Timmins, Fredericton, London) In 1964, the Progressive Conservative government of Ontario introduced Bill 99, one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in the province's history.

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Regardless of what you believe or practice, and whether you subscribe to a particular set of religious beliefs or don't, protecting freedom of religion is an important part of ensuring that all people are treated with equal dignity and respect.

Freedom of religion helps to ensure that religious minorities are not the subject of discrimination. It also protects the rights of those whose beliefs may lie with the majority.

Freedom of religion is crucial to maintaining a private sphere for individuals and communities where the government does not-and cannot-intrude. The state should be neutral and impartial when it comes to matters of deeply-held personal beliefs.

Religious Freedom in Canada is an Essential Right

The freedom to believe and practice as we choose is closely related to core values of liberty and autonomy. Religious freedom in Canada means that there are no state-sponsored religions and that the government cannot prefer some religious beliefs or groups over others.

Similarly, religious belief cannot be preferred to non-belief. We strives to ensure that any restrictions on freedom of religion are necessary and minimally intrusive and that our public institutions treat all individuals equally, regardless of religious affiliation.

Click here to view our current case against the religious symbols ban in Quebec.

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Freedom of Religion in Canada: Speech and Protection | CCLA

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Regardless of what you believe or practice, and whether you subscribe to a particular set of religious beliefs or don't, protecting freedom of religion is an important part of ensuring that all people are treated with equal dignity and respect. Freedom of religion helps to ensure that religious minorities are not the subject of discrimination.

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The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is celebrating its 50th anniversary as an organization with a long history of political involvement and activism for the interest of protecting Canadian civil rights.

"I'm very proud of the organization as a whole," said Danielle McLaughlin, the CCLA's director of education and administration. "It's unique to Canada. There's no other organization that's done the kind of work that this one has done."

McLaughlin, who has worked for the organization for 26 years, is currently the CCLA's longest-serving member.

"When people study the organization, as I hope they will be doing for many years to come, they will understand that we've been involved with most of the major charter cases since 1982," she said. "We've been involved in the deep consideration of what rights and freedoms are all about in Canada, and I'm very proud of that."

The CCLA has, in fact, been involved in issues in Canada ranging everywhere from freedom of expression to the issue of online privacy, and even matters of national security. The organization is also known for occasionally taking stances unpopular among the public.

In October of 1970 in what is known as the October Crisis, the extreme separatist group known as le Front de Libération du Québec kidnapped two government workers: British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, who was later found murdered. In response, the federal government invoked the War Measures Act, effectively instituting martial law and suspending habeas corpus. Though the use of the measure was mostly supported by the public, the CCLA and its general counsel Alan Borovoy denounced the action as excessive and unnecessary; a position eventually shared by René Lévesque and Tommy Douglas.

"We often joke that, when we've made everyone angry, we know we've done something right," said McLaughlin.

Borovoy later worked with the Ministry of National Defense to develop a new measure to replace the War Measures Act.

"They're unpopular topics," said Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, director of the CCLA's equality program. "To the uninitiated, it sounds like we're supporting terrorists. Of course we're not. We're just saying that if you're going to be using measures, you have to use them carefully. Blanket measures are going to capture far more people than is necessary. We need, as much as possible, to protect the rights of individuals."

Throughout her time at the CCLA, Aviv says she has seen discrimination alive and well in Canada, best demonstrated by the recent distribution of racist pamphlets in Brampton, Ontario. The leaflets singled out Canada's Sikh community above the words "Is this really what you want?"

"We are seeing terrible statements coming out of all sorts of sectors around immigrants, newcomers, racialized communities," said Aviv. "There is certainly homophobia, and there is certainly racism. Some of it is thinly-veiled. A lot of the anti-refugee, anti-immigrant, and anti-religious oppression - which is just a lot of anti-Muslim rhetoric - is really just thinly-veiled xenophobia and racism."

As for the future, McLaughlin says the issues the CCLA concerns itself with will continue to evolve.

"The nature of what you fight for does change over time," she said. "Issues of freedom of expression are still very important, but a lot of it is now internet-based issues."
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association will be celebrating its 50th anniversary with a concert on Saturday, May 3, 8pm at Trinity St. Paul's United Church in Toronto. For tickets and more information, visit their website here.

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Canadian Civil Liberties Association celebrates 50-year legacy

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The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is celebrating its 50th anniversary as an organization with a long history of political involvement and activism for the interest of protecting Canadian civil rights. "I'm very proud of the organization as a whole," said Danielle McLaughlin, the CCLA's director of education and administration.

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What is their history? What have they done in the past?

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What is their history? What have they done in the past?

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The Canadian Race Relations Foundation is dedicated to the elimination of racism in Canada.

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our mission & vision our mission CCLA IS A HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION COMMITTED TO DEFENDING THE RIGHTS, DIGNITY, SAFETY, AND FREEDOMS OF ALL PEOPLE IN CANADA. CCLA fights for the civil liberties, human rights, and democratic freedoms of all people across Canada.

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Bill 21: The Law Against Religious Freedom - CCLA

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CCLA is fighting Bill 21 in Canada; the law against religious freedom. Learn more about this law and our work to protect the freedoms of the people of Canada.

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CCLA has been fighting nationally for equality, privacy, freedom of speech, criminal justice, and more for over 50 years.

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What have they done to combat this particular civics issue?

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What have they done to combat this particular civics issue?

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What is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association?

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What is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association?

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The Quebec government's contentious religious symbols ban leads to "real and substantial harm" and unfairly targets women, according to Canadian civil liberties groups who made their arguments before the province's highest court on Tuesday.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) claim Bill 21, the province's secularism law, harms minority groups in Quebec and limits employment opportunities.

"Let's be clear, we are already experiencing the effects of the law today," said Bochra Manaï, a consultant with the NCCM, from the courthouse in Montreal.

Bill 21 prohibits some employees in positions of authority - including teachers, police officers and judges - from wearing religious symbols while on duty. The law has been widely criticized, but the Legault government maintains it has support from the majority of Quebecers.
READ MORE: Quebec premier says Bill 21 'must be respected' as Trudeau Liberals form minority
The organizations were before Quebec's top court after their request for an immediate stay of some of the law's provisions was rejected by a Superior Court judge in July. Justice Michel Yergeau ruled that Bill 21 would continue to apply in full until a challenge of the law could be heard on its merits, saying the applicants did not demonstrate harm warranting a stay.

In August, Court of Appeal Chief Justice Nicole Duval Hesler granted the NCCM and CCLA leave to appeal the decision.

Catherine McKenzie, a lawyer for the applicants, argued before the court on Tuesday that the impact of Bill 21 is "massive" and that many people in the courtroom are being denied employment based on what they wear.

"The irreparable harm is obvious," said McKenzie.

The groups claim Quebec's secularism law also disproportionately affects women and is a direct violation of the sexual equality guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms under Section 28.

"So far, the only people whose rights this has infringed [upon] are women," said Olga Redko, a lawyer for the applicants.
READ MORE: Marchers show a united front protesting against Bill 21
Éric Cantin, a lawyer for the Quebec government, said the province acted in the public's best interest when it passed Bill 21.

The three Appeal Court justices are expected to deliberate and render a decision in the coming months.

"I would hardly want to speculate what the justices will do," said Noa Mendelhsohn Aviv, equality programme director at CCLA. "I certainly hope they will hear and they will make the right decision."

The province's controversial religious symbols ban is also facing a legal challenge from a union representing 45,000 teachers in Quebec. The Fédération Autonome de l'Enseignement launched a lawsuit over the religious symbols ban earlier this month.

Both the Quebec government and its opponents have said they are willing to take Bill 21 to the Supreme Court if necessary.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he hasn't ruled out challenging the legislation, Quebec Premier François Legault has repeatedly warned him not to meddle in the province's affairs.

Montreal protesters rally in the rain against Bill 21
- With files from Global News' Tim Sargeant, Amanda Jelowicki and the Canadian Press

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Quebec's Bill 21 leads to 'irreparable harm,' civil liberties groups tell Court of Appeal

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The Quebec government's contentious religious symbols ban leads to "real and substantial harm" and unfairly targets women, according to Canadian civil liberties groups who made their arguments before the province's highest court on Tuesday. The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) claim Bill 21, the province's secularism law, harms minority groups in Quebec and limits employment opportunities.

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- UDHR Article 18
- Xenophobia and Islamophobia seems to have a bigger presence in politics and in today's world.
- Innocent people are being  rejected opportunities because of their beliefs

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How does the Quebec government defend itself?

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MONTREAL -- Quebec's attorney general argued Wednesday that the province's state secularism law does not deny freedom of religion -- rather, it frames it.

After hearing arguments against the controversial law in court for several weeks, the attorney general's office will take the next two days to plead its constitutionality.

The piece of legislation, known as Bill 21, is being contested by several groups who want to have it struck down, in whole or in part.

Adopted in June 2019 by the National Assembly, it prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by certain public employees when they are performing their functions, including police officers and Crown prosecutors, as well as to teachers in public primary and secondary schools.

Attorney Andre Cantin argued that the debate has been "emotional and loaded" for a long time.

"The State Secularism Act does not violate the fundamental freedoms of citizens," he continued, a comment that made Superior Court Justice Marc-Andre Blanchard jump.

Hijab-wearing teachers testified at the start of the trial, arguing that they could not imagine teaching in their classes without their headscarves.

"(It's) inconceivable," one said, saying that it was an integral part of her identity.

"What is the point of guaranteeing freedom of religion if it is then to be denied in school?" asked the judge.

The law does not deny this freedom, it frames it, retorted the prosecutor.

"It is a justified constraint," said Cantin.

"Freedom of religion is not absolute, in any context. The ban on religious symbols at school is a ban in a specific sphere, which does not prevent citizens from practicing their religion everywhere else."

ATTACKS ON THE LAW

Since Nov. 2, various groups have marched in front of Justice Blanchard to argue that the law is contrary to various sections of the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Those who challenge it believe that it is particularly discriminatory against religious minorities, including Muslim women, who would be particularly targeted by the law.

Among those who have challenged the law since the beginning of November are the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, teachers -- some of whom wear the hijab -- along with the federation of education professionals (FAE) and the English Montreal School Board.

The government of Quebec also has allies who will present arguments to preserve the law in its entirety, including the Mouvement laïque québécois (MLQ), which says it wants to defend the rights of students and parents, and the organization "For the rights of Quebec women" (PDF).

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2020.

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Quebec argues secularism law doesn't deny religious freedom but is 'justified constraint'

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MONTREAL -- Quebec's attorney general argued Wednesday that the province's state secularism law does not deny freedom of religion -- rather, it frames it. After hearing arguments against the controversial law in court for several weeks, the attorney general's office will take the next two days to plead its constitutionality.

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(Supports the ban)

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Notre mission
Le MLQ est un regroupement fondé en 1981, indépendant de toute affiliation à un parti, ouvert aux citoyennes et citoyens de toute croyance ou confession, qui partagent le même objectif fondamental, celui de la laïcisation complète de l'État et des institutions publiques du Québec. Ultimement, le MLQ veut contribuer à l'instauration au Québec d'une république démocratique laïque. Pour en savoir plus...

Le Mouvement laïque québécois mène une campagne visant à financer la défense de la Loi sur la laïcité et des droits des parents et des élèves. Avec un long procès prévu pour novembre et décembre 2020 et des opposants à la loi disposant eux d'importantes sources de financement, cette campagne de financement est vitale. N'hésitez pas à aller faire un don sur le site jedonne21.ca.
135 048,03$ ont été recueillis auprès de 1900 donateurs au 18 février 2021 sur un objectif de 200 000$.

De quelques contradictions de Gérard Bouchard

Réplique du président du MLQ Daniel Baril à la lettre de Gérard Bouchard publiée dans Le Devoir le 13 février dernier. " Cher Monsieur Bouchard, Chaque fois que je vous lis, j'ai peine à vous suivre tellement vos contradictions deviennent autant d'éléphants dans la pièce. C'est encore le cas avec votre texte du 13 février dans Le Devoir. Je m'en tiendrai ici à vos propos sur la laïcité. Vous dites que la Loi sur la laïcité de l'État " brime un droit sans justification suffisante et, en dressant des minorités contre la majorité, elle compromet l'intégration collective ". Pour lire la suite de cette réplique (18 février 2021)

Commémoration du 15 février 19h du Rassemblement pour un pays souverain

... Également nous décernerons le Grand Prix de la laïcité du Rassemblement pour un pays souverain à monsieur Guillaume Rousseau, procureur dans la défense de la Loi 21 au procès en invalidation qu'ont intenté les opposants à cette Loi. L'adresse au lauréat sera faite par le président de la Société nationale de l'Estrie, monsieur Étienne-Alexis Boucher. Pour lire tout le communiqué du RPS (11 février 2021)

Prix Condorcet-Dessaulles 2020: Honneurs aux défenseurs de la Loi sur la laïcité

Communiqué du Mlq (2 février 2021)

L'inquiétante intolérance de la nouvelle commissaire antiracisme

Le rôle de choisir une personne chargée de faire reculer le racisme, bien réel et vécu à Montréal n'est pas chose facile. Informé des objections qui pouvaient être faites à l'endroit de la commissaire désignée, Bochra Manaï, un des porte-parole de la mairesse a indiqué que "la Ville ne peut pas, légalement ou moralement, rejeter un candidat qualifié sur la base de ses positions ou emplois passés." Pour lire la suite de la lettre publiée par 42 signataires, dans journaldemontreal.com. (21 janvier 2021)

Réformer le cours d'ECR : de quelle façon?

Entrevue avec Nadia El-Mabrouk, militante pour la laïcité : Une femme voilée à la télévision canadienne et la réforme du cours d'Éthique et Culture religieuse. Pour écouter l'entrevue de Nadia El-Mabrouk par Richard Martineau, sur qub.radio. (20 janvier 2021)

Éthique et culture religieuse: rétablir le dialogue démocratique

De l'affaire Lieutenant-Duval jusqu'à l'effacement des suggestions littéraires du premier ministre par l'Association des libraires du Québec, en passant par les nombreuses dénonciations de professeurs pour propos jugés offensants, sans parler du dialogue de sourds qui prévaut dans le dossier de la laïcité où accusations et procès d'intention sont devenus la norme, l'année 2020 n'aura pas été un modèle en matière de liberté d'expression et de débat social ouvert et constructif. Comment rétablir la conversation démocratique souhaitée? S'il y a un dossier dans lequel cette question doit prévaloir, c'est bien celui de l'élaboration de la nouvelle mouture du cours d'Éthique et culture religieuse (ÉCR), envisagé comme un cours de citoyenneté, dont l'implantation est prévue pour septembre 2022. Pour lire la suite de l' article de Nadia El-Mabrouk, dans journaldemontreal.com. (19 janvier 2021)

Le dossier de la revue Argument.

La lettre au Devoir que vous ne lirez pas

Monsieur le directeur, Le Mouvement laïque québécois tient à vous faire part du profond mécontentement de ses membres face à la façon dont Le Devoir a couvert le procès contre la Loi sur la laïcité de l'État. Il serait plus exact de dire face à la façon dont Le Devoir n'a pas couvert ce procès, tellement les faits saillants ont été ignorés par le journal qui n'y a affecté aucun de ses journalistes. Les articles qui en ont traité se sont avérés pour leur part très partiels, voire nettement partiaux. Pour lire la suite de la lettre de Daniel Baril, vice-président du Mlq. (13 janvier 2021)

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Mouvement laïque québécois - Promotion et défense de la liberté de conscience Promotion et défense de la liberté de conscience

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Notre mission Le MLQ est un regroupement fondé en 1981, indépendant de toute affiliation à un parti, ouvert aux citoyennes et citoyens de toute croyance ou confession, qui partagent le même objectif fondamental, celui de la laïcisation complète de l'État et des institutions publiques du Québec.

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NCCM - National Council of Canadian Muslims

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The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) is an independent, non-partisan and non-profit organization that protects Canadian human rights and civil liberties, challenges discrimination and Islamophobia, builds mutual understanding, and advocates for the public concerns of Canadian Muslims.

Built from within the Canadian Muslim community, the NCCM is a leading voice for Muslim civic engagement and the promotion of human rights.

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NCCM - National Council of Canadian Muslims

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The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) is an independent, non-partisan and non-profit organization that protects Canadian human rights and civil liberties, challenges discrimination and Islamophobia, builds mutual understanding, and advocates for the public concerns of Canadian Muslims. Built from within the Canadian Muslim community, the NCCM is a leading voice for Muslim civic engagement and the promotion of human rights.

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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What are some groups working on this issue?

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What are some groups working on this issue?

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Nour Farhat in her law office in Montreal. As a Muslim woman wearing the hijab, she is prohibited under a new law from working as a public prosecutor unless she agrees to remove her hijab while at work.

Four women recount how Quebec's new secularism law has changed their lives.

Nour Farhat in her law office in Montreal. As a Muslim woman wearing the hijab, she is prohibited under a new law from working as a public prosecutor unless she agrees to remove her hijab while at work. Credit...

MONTREAL - A Muslim lawyer who wears a head scarf has put aside her aspiration to become a public prosecutor.

A Sikh teacher with a turban moved about 2,800 miles from Quebec to Vancouver, calling herself a "refugee in her own country."

And an Orthodox Jewish teacher who wears a head kerchief is worried that she could be blocked from a promotion.

Since the Quebec government in June banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors and other public sector employees from wearing religious symbols while at work, people like these three women have been grappling with the consequences.

François Legault, the right-leaning Quebec premier, says the law - which applies to Muslim head scarves, Sikh turbans, Jewish skullcaps, Catholic crosses and other religious symbols - upholds the separation between religion and state, and maintains the neutrality of public sector workers. The government has stressed that the vast majority of Quebecers support the ban.

"I would not feel comfortable being faced with a judge or lawyer in court wearing a head scarf here, because I would worry about their neutrality," said Radhia Ben Amor, a research coordinator at the University of Montreal, who is Muslim and said she moved from Tunisia to live in a more secular country.

But the law has prompted vocal protests and legal challenges, as well as condemnation by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Critics say it flouts freedom of religion, breaches constitutional protections and excludes minorities who choose to wear symbols of faith from vital professions. They also say implementing the law will be fraught because it can be hard to discern a religious symbol from a fashion accessory or nonreligious garb.

The English Montreal School Board said the law was forcing it to turn away qualified teachers. It said at least one teacher had removed her head scarf while at work to keep her job.

The Coalition Inclusion Québec - a group that includes Roman Catholics, Jews, Sikhs and Muslims - is challenging the law in court, along with three teachers, including two Muslims and a Roman Catholic.

Perri Ravon, a lawyer who has worked on two of the lawsuits against the ban, said that at least for now, "the law is disproportionately affecting Muslim women because the hijab is an outwardly visible religious symbol." She noted that a Catholic cross was less conspicuous since it could be concealed in a blouse or a shirt while at work.

Nonetheless, the Catholic teacher named in one of the suits, Andréa Lauzon, who wears a visible cross and medallion of the Virgin Mary, said in court papers that her faith and identity were inextricably bound, and that her constitutional right to freedom of religion was being breached.

The ban has its roots in Quebec's historic evolution into an abidingly secular society with a visceral distrust of religion, stemming from the so-called Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, when Quebecers revolted against dominance of the Roman Catholic Church.

Jean Duhaime, emeritus professor of religion at the University of Montreal, said that even before the recent law, the wearing of crosses in the public sector was stigmatized and discouraged in Quebec society.

He said Catholic opponents to the ban were in solidarity with other religious groups, adding that many proponents of the law saw Muslims wearing head scarves as "the phantom of religion reappearing in Quebec while viewing the hijab as an instrument of patriarchal domination."

Here are four women whose lives and careers have been affected by the ban.

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Nour Farhat, 28
Nour Farhat long dreamed about becoming a Quebec public prosecutor. Instead, she now represents a teachers' union that is suing the Quebec government over the ban.

During an internship for a Quebec government agency, Ms. Farhat appeared before a judge in her head scarf, she said, making her a novelty in the courthouse.

But the ban came into effect a few weeks after she finished her master's degree in criminal law. "My dreams are destroyed," she said. She now works in a private law firm.

Ms. Farhat argued that the law was inconsistent.

"Why is it O.K. for a man with a beard or a woman wearing a cross under her turtleneck to work as a state prosecutor but it's not O.K. for a woman to wear a hijab?" she asked.

While some supporters say the law will help liberate Muslim women from a garment they call sexist and restrictive, Ms. Farhat said her head scarf empowers her.

Ms. Farhat's parents emigrated to Montreal from Lebanon in the 1990s. At age 11, she decided to put on a head scarf. "My dad always said 'My daughter is worth 1000 men,'" she recalled.

She said that although some judges had been startled to see a female lawyer with a head scarf, some defendants from minority backgrounds cheered.

"They said, 'We're so happy to see someone like you in a courthouse' even after I reminded them that I was prosecuting them."

Amrit Kaur, 29
The ban on religious symbols passed the day that Amrit Kaur, a Sikh who wears a turban, graduated from teachers college. So she moved to the other side of the country.

"Quebec asking me to take off my turban is like asking me to cut off a limb," she said.

And how, she asked, was she supposed to teach children about tolerance and diversity when she herself was forbidden from wearing a symbol of her own religious faith while at work?

Although Sikh men have traditionally worn the turban, some Sikh women in the diaspora like Ms. Kaur have adopted the custom, to claim their faith and equality. Sikh activists in Quebec said few if any Sikh men were affected by the ban because within the fairly small Sikh community in the province, men historically have not applied for public sector jobs like policing, fearing prejudice against the turban.

Even before the law passed, the Quebec government had banned several Sikhs from entering the Quebec legislature with small ceremonial daggers, or kirpans, under their clothing. The ban survived an appeal at Canada's Supreme Court.

Mandeep Kaur, vice president of the Quebec chapter of the World Sikh Organization (and no relation to Amrit Kaur), said the new law would further deter young practicing Sikhs from entering public sector jobs.

Amrit Kaur recalled that her father, a Pink Floyd-loving aeronautical engineer, had suffered taunts of "Paki, go home!" while growing up in England and had settled in Montreal because of its tolerance.

Now, she is so homesick for Quebec that she set her computer, car and iPhone language settings to French.

She said the suggestion by supporters of the bill that her turban would make her indoctrinate children was misguided. "It is the state that is imposing secularism as a religion on me," she said.

Carolyn Gehr, 37
Parents at the high school where Carolyn Gehr teaches laud her as a role model for young women. She presides over chemistry and geology laboratory sessions and advises a feminist student group on issues like abortion and date rape.

But Ms. Gehr, an Orthodox Jew with 14 years of experience at her school, fears she could be blocked if she wanted to be promoted to vice principal. Officials at the school board said the law might apply to her head kerchief.

"The idea that I should be punished because of what is on my head is offensive," said Ms. Gehr, who said she wore the head covering to symbolize her marital commitment under Jewish law.

Ms. Gehr said the law forced teachers to explain to religious children that their career choices could be limited.

"How is a teacher supposed to tell a student to curtail their dreams?" she asked.

Ms. Gehr said the religious symbol ban was based on a "false premise."

"The Quebec government doesn't seem to understand that the rules of religion are not something you can just leave at the door."

Sumayya Patel, 24
After the ban passed, Sumayya Patel asked herself whether she could remove her head scarf.

She couldn't.

"There are times when I want to take it off and let my hair down like other girls," she said."But I have stuck with it since I am 13 years old, and, after all that effort and sacrifice, it has become a part of me."

Ms. Patel said that just a few months after she graduated from McGill University in Montreal with a degree in education, and had been offered a job as a substitute teacher, her life was upended when the school board told her that to continue to work, she would need to remove her hijab.

Eventually, the board let her keep her job because she was hired before the law came into force. However, her future is uncertain.

Ms. Patel said the law promoted hatred.

Some feminists in Quebec support the ban, arguing that keeping religion out of public life can help further women's rights.

But Ms. Patel said those who wanted to restrict her from wearing her hijab were being sexist. Her Gujarat-born parents had always encouraged her to have a career.

"Feminism is having the choice to do what you want to do," she said.

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A Quebec Ban on Religious Symbols Upends Lives and Careers

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Four women recount how Quebec's new secularism law has changed their lives. Nour Farhat in her law office in Montreal. As a Muslim woman wearing the hijab, she is prohibited under a new law from working as a public prosecutor unless she agrees to remove her hijab while at work.

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The cause and consequences

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Denmark has become the latest country to prohibit wearing the burqa and niqab in public.

Reuters

Denmark this week wrote the latest chapter in a global story that is becoming strangely familiar. The country's new ban on any "garment that hides the face in public"-widely understood to be targeting Islamic veils like the burqa and niqab-entered into effect on Wednesday.

Limitations on wearing face veils in public have already been enacted in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and Austria. They've been debated as far as Australia and the Canadian province of Quebec. Despite regional differences, a similar pattern of events has recurred in some of the countries. Although not every element of the pattern has appeared in every country, France, Quebec, and Austria, for instance, have followed a progression that goes roughly like this.

First, politicians in a country propose banning the face veil, which is worn by a small number of Muslim women and reflects one interpretation of the Quran's injunction to "cover and be modest." They argue that a ban will promote integration, or public safety, or that wearing a veil is inconsistent with national values like gender equality. Pundits and lawmakers loudly debate the policy, and the argument rages in the press. A few propose legal challenges. Eventually, the ban is passed into law.

Then, Muslims protest in the streets together with non-Muslims, some of whom wear veils in solidarity. Then comes yet another round of loud debate, amplified across the media. With time, reports indicate that discrimination against Muslims is rising in the country. Many Muslim women begin to hold more tightly to their religious identity, and some who didn't wear the veil before the ban now start wearing it as an act of protest. Some others opt to stay home, though it's impossible to say how widespread the phenomenon is.

If the ban was truly meant to promote gender equality, it appears to backfire. And yet, a few months later, another country enacts its own ban, and the whole process happens all over again.

Denmark has so far followed this progression. It was nine years ago that the right-wing Danish People's Party first called for a ban on full-face coverings in public. But the move later found support elsewhere on the political spectrum. More recently, Marcus Knuth, of the ruling liberal party Venstre, argued that full-face veils are "strongly oppressive." The justice minister, Søren Pape Poulsen, called one such full-face covering, the niqab, "incompatible with the values in Danish society." The law enacting the ban passed in May. As it entered into force this Wednesday, hundreds of Muslims protested while wearing the now-illegal veils. They were joined by non-Muslims, many of whom also covered their faces-with everything from niqabs to horse-head masks-in solidarity.

On Thursday, I spoke to Sabina, a 21-year-old Muslim who lives in Copenhagen and wears the niqab. (She declined to give her last name out of concern for her safety.) She told me she's worried the ban will result in niqab-wearing women becoming isolated in their homes. "I haven't been out all day because I really have to consider if it's worth going out and worth me getting a fine, because I'm at risk of that now-every time I step out of my front door, I'm a criminal." A violation results in a fine of about $150 for a first-time offender.

But she added that she and other women will refuse to take off the veil. "The niqab is a huge part of my identity. It's a very spiritual choice-and now it has also become a sign of protest," she said. "I actually believe that whenever politicians make these discriminatory laws, we only get stronger. We feel that this ban has made us a lot more vocal, brave, and strong. We are encouraging even more women to wear the niqab. It has already resulted in me being more firm in my beliefs and holding more tightly to my niqab."

If the experience of places like France, Quebec, and Austria are any indication, Denmark's ban is likely to keep backfiring.

France banned Muslim headscarves and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools in 2004, and banned full-face veils from all public spaces in 2010. President Nicolas Sarkozy declared, "It is a question of freedom and of women's dignity. The burqa is not a religious sign. It is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission, of women." But instead of complying, some young Muslim women began to express resentment of French society, and doubled down on head-covering as a form of political protest. "It's my way of fighting, to say no to the government, who took away my liberty," said one woman who began veiling herself after 2010.

"This is a case of 'reactive ethnicity'-when you have a policy to ban a practice, so people continue it in protest," Jeffrey Reitz, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto who researches Muslim immigration, told me in an interview last year. "In France, it clearly backfires."

What's more, surveys of attitudes toward French Muslims showed that there was a strong correlation between the highly publicized legislation banning headscarves in 2004 and an increase in anti-Muslim sentiment. In 2013, a pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage after two men allegedly attacked her for wearing the veil and ripped it off her face as she walked down the street in a Paris suburb. A report that year indicated that more Muslim women were staying home, because "after the ban they felt considerably less secure because of harassment and violence targeted at them by members of the public who have been emboldened by the ban ... Restrictions on the movement and security of women in the public space has had significant detrimental consequences on their physical and mental health and on their relationships."
Does the burqa have a future in Europe?
In Canada, the province of Quebec has been debating a similar ban for years. In 2013, the "Charter of Values" sought to ban "ostentatious" religious symbols-including the full-face veil, the headscarf, the turban, and the kippah-among public workers, and argued that this measure would promote gender equality. Muslims protested in the streets, and thousands of non-Muslims joined them, with some donning headscarves to show their solidarity. The charter was never implemented, but a later iteration known as Bill 62 did pass into law last October. However, the controversial part of that legislation that would bar women with covered faces from accessing public services was challenged in court, and its enactment was suspended pending judicial review. This June, a judge suspended it for the second time. Even though that part of the law hasn't come into effect yet, women's groups have been reporting an increase in verbal and physical attacks against veiled Muslim women.

"It's obvious. Since the debate over the charter, the increase in intolerance is palpable," Valérie Létourneau, a spokeswoman for an umbrella organization of 17 women's centers across Quebec, told The Globe and Mail in May. "It's contributing to a climate of fear. Veiled women are finding it harder to leave their homes." She said that dozens of assaults against veiled women were reported to her during a single meeting of her coalition. One man had rammed a woman's shopping cart with his own and told her, "Go back to your country." Another man yelled at a woman on a bus, "We should have never opened the door to you!" Other women's-center employees insisted in the same interview that ever since the government started debating a ban, people have been emboldened to behave aggressively toward Muslims. As Fabienne Mathieu put it, "They dropped a bomb and we're dealing with the shrapnel."

In Austria, the ban on full-face coverings that went into effect last year has had several unintended consequences. Of the people who were arrested for breaking the law, most were not veiled Muslims. After all, only about 150 Muslim women in Austria actually wear a veil. Instead, the ban resulted in officers fining one man for wearing a shark costume and another for wearing a rabbit costume. They also stopped Asian tourists wearing anti-pollution masks, and a leukemia patient who'd been ordered to wear a mask to protect his immune system.

"If this law was intended as a contribution in the fight against conservative Islam, then I can only say: It's gone belly up," said the police commander Hermann Greylinger. Some officers are now declining to enforce the law. One characterized the ban as "nothing but populism."

In Denmark, too, observers say populism is part-but not all-of what's animated the ban. "This legislation has been supported by the Conservatives, the Liberal party, and the Social Democrats," said Stig Hjarvard, a professor at the University of Copenhagen who researches the role of religion in Scandinavian societies. "There's both a populist anti-immigrant or Islamophobic position and a secular Enlightenment discourse." The latter argues that banning veils is vital to emancipating "oppressed" women.

Hjarvard said that public opinion in the country has been shifting for years, to the point that a majority now expresses concern about Islam as a threat to Danish culture. "Denmark is a very small country, but proportionally speaking it has been heavily involved in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So the whole War on Terror and the question about Islam has been pushed high on the agenda in Denmark, a bit more than in countries like Norway and Sweden. Those questions have spilled into this [burqa ban] discussion and been exploited, not least by the populist right."

He added that Denmark's right-wing politicians these days lean heavily on identity politics as a method of political point-scoring, and that the burqa ban must be seen in context of other recent moves. In May, the government passed a law requiring children who live in what it calls "ghettos"-Muslim-majority immigrant communities-to receive training in "Danish values." That same month, Immigration Minister Inger Stojberg said Muslims should stay home during Ramadan "to avoid negative consequences for the rest of Danish society," claiming it's "a danger" to work while fasting.

Agnès De Féo, a sociologist who's spent 10 years studying Muslim veiling practices in Europe, told me bans can have dangerous consequences. "These measures create discrimination and self-marginalization," she wrote in an email, "because these women, feeling excluded, will opt out more." She added: "The noise that is made around these laws, whose scale is disproportionate to the phenomenon itself (50 to 200 women would be affected by the niqab [ban] in Denmark) creates a bad reaction that does not only affect women who wear the niqab. This affects the entire Muslim community, which feels that such measures, with such publicity, for such a small number of users, is a way of telling Muslims that ... they are strangers."

Human-rights groups have likewise slammed Denmark's new law. "This blanket ban is neither necessary nor proportionate and violates women's rights to freedom of expression and religion," said Fotis Filippou, Amnesty International's deputy director for Europe. "If the intention of this law was to protect women's rights, it fails abjectly."

In spite of such statements, and in spite of the adverse effects such bans have on Muslims, Denmark's new law is unlikely to be overturned. The European Court of Human Rights has consistently backed these bans, upholding France's in 2014 and Belgium's in 2017, and choosing to give each country significant leeway in determining what it needs to do to ensure public safety and social cohesion. The life cycle of the burqa ban probably won't change anytime soon.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Sigal Samuel is a former associate editor at The Atlantic, covering religion and global affairs. She is the author of The Mystics of Mile End.

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Banning Muslim Veils Tends to Backfire-Why Do Countries Keep Doing It?

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Denmark has become the latest country to prohibit wearing the burqa and niqab in public. Denmark this week wrote the latest chapter in a global story that is becoming strangely familiar. The country's new ban on any "garment that hides the face in public"-widely understood to be targeting Islamic veils like the burqa and niqab-entered into effect on Wednesday.

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Why do governments and countries ban religious symbols?

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Why do governments and countries ban religious symbols?

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Face Covering Ban in Public

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Quebec's new law on religious neutrality prohibits anyone from receiving or giving public services with their face covered, making it the first place in North America to effectively ban face veils in public places.

Bill 62, passed Wednesday in Quebec's National Assembly, means Muslim women who wear a niqab or burka have to uncover their faces to access health services, attend school, and ride a public bus or Metro.

While the guidelines for how the legislation will be enforced won't be ready until next summer, Muslim advocacy groups and civil liberty organizations have criticized the legislation as an unconstitutional infringement on peoples' rights.

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard has defended the bill, saying it's necessary for "communication, identification and safety" reasons.

Quebec is not the only place in the world to restrict face coverings in the public sphere.

Here's where some of the laws regulating face coverings, and religious attire, have also been passed.

France

France introduced a law banning face coverings that conceal peoples' identities in public in 2010.

Though it doesn't explicitly mention religion, critics say the legislation targets Muslim women, who have been barred from public places like streets and parks while wearing niqabs.

The debate in France pits religious freedom against laïcité ​, or secularism, which holds a venerated place in French society.

The European Court of Human Rights upheld the ban in 2014. It ruled it was proportional because its aim was to preserve the idea of "living together."

Last year, a handful of French mayors passed measures banning the "burkini," a full-body swimsuit worn by some Muslim women at the beach.

The issue garnered international attention after a photo showing French police forcing a Muslim woman to remove her long-sleeved covering on a beach went viral.

France's top administrative court suspended the "burkini ban," as the measures became known, last year, calling it an "attack on fundamental rights".

Belgium

Belgium passed a law barring people from wearing anything that fully or partially covers their faces in places accessible to the public in 2011.

Two Muslim women challenged the law in the European Court of Justice, alleging that it violated their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to practice their religion and freedom of expression.

The Court upheld the government's ban in a decision released earlier this year.

Austria

Austria banned face veils in public places earlier this month.

The ban, which came into effect on Oct. 1, forbids any kind of face covering in public, including on public buses, metros and trains.

Police can ask people to remove their face coverings on the spot and fine anyone 150 euros for contravening the law. Refusing to remove your face covering can also land you in a police station.

Austria's Foreign Ministry says the law "is aimed at ensuring social cohesion and social peace in Austria," but critics say it unfairly targets Muslim women who wear a niqab or burka.

Last month, a man in a shark costume was fined 150 euros in Vienna because his face was covered in public.

Germany

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out against Islamic face coverings last December, when she accepted her party's leadership nomination a few months ahead of a national election.

"Full veiling is not appropriate here - it should be banned wherever that is legally possible," Merkel said, according to The Associated Press.

In September, the German parliament passed a law banning drivers from wearing anything that partially or fully covers their faces.

Turkey

For decades, Turkey maintained a ban on women wearing headscarves in state institutions, including universities and government offices.

Restrictions on religious dress in Turkey date back to the country's founding as a secular republic in the 1920s.

But the enforced ban on headscarves came after a 1980 coup.

The restriction "kept young women, especially from religiously conservative families, out of the educational system," said Ariel Salzmann, an associate professor of Islamic and World History at Queen's University who specializes in Turkish history.

"It's the historic experience of Turkey in dealing with religious dress that shows how such bans actually backfire," Salzmann told CBC News in an interview.

The result over the last 20 years has been "a sort of backlash by lower-middle-class and middle-class people from the provinces who resent these decades of imposition on their lifestyle," Salzmann said.

Turkey's current President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, lifted the ban on headscarves in universities and government institutions in 2011, when he was the country's prime minister.

Erdogan announced earlier this year that women in the Turkish armed forces would be able to wear headscarves as part of their uniforms.

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How Quebec's face-covering ban stacks up to laws elsewhere around the globe | CBC News

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Quebec's new law on religious neutrality prohibits anyone from receiving or giving public services with their face covered, making it the first place in North America to effectively ban face veils in public places.

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Religious Symbols banned from government

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The Canadian province has a complicated relationship with its immigrant communities. Last month, it became the first place in North America to institute such a ban.

Christinne Muschi / Reuters

MONTREAL-When Sarah Abou Bakr was in elementary school, an elderly woman mocked her mother's head scarf and shouted insults at her in a busy mall here. Abou Bakr shouted right back. Her mother, who had moved to Quebec from her native Egypt and didn't know enough French to defend herself, pulled her away. The bystanders did little to help. "That marks you," Abou Bakr told me in a recent interview. "You don't forget it."

Now Abou Bakr is 21, and that memory is more relevant than ever: Quebec, where she was born and raised, and where she still lives, has become the first state or province in North America to ban Muslim head scarves and other religious symbols, including Jewish kippahs, Sikh turbans, and Christian crosses, among some public servants.

Bill 21, or its official name, "An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State," was passed last month, after Quebec's center-right government held a marathon parliamentary session-and curbed debate in the face of staunch opposition. Yet polls nevertheless show the legislation is popular-63 percent of Quebecers support a ban on judges, police officers, and prison guards wearing religious symbols; 59 percent back such a restriction on teachers, too. The legislation, which applies only to new hires or those who change jobs within an organization, means workers in positions of authority in public schools, courtrooms, law enforcement agencies and other places can no longer wear such symbols.

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While the law is specific to Quebec, it comes amid arguments elsewhere in the world around restricting the display of religious symbols-though in most cases, Muslim women are bearing the brunt. In 2011, France banned full-face veils, such as the burka or niqab, in public, and has sought to restrict full-body swimsuits ("burkinis") on beaches as well. A ban of full-face veils is also on the books in Belgium, Austria, and Denmark, while similar measures are being considered by other European countries, or are being adopted on a more local scale.
Read: Does the burqa have a future in Europe?
"It is quite similar to what we have in Belgium, in France, in Germany," Quebec Premier François Legault told CBC, the Canadian broadcaster, in defense of the new law. "So when I hear some people saying that Quebec becomes racist, do they mean that Germany, France, and Belgium are racist?"

That this debate is happening in Quebec is no surprise, given its history and how it views itself compared with the rest of Canada. Some Quebecers fear that the broader Canadian policy of multiculturalism will erase their "distinct identity" as a French-speaking province. These concerns have translated into efforts such as Bill 21.

The law is a decade in the making; for years, lawmakers discussed legislating secularism and tried to ban religious symbols in public. The Catholic Church has long held sway here, which has left many Quebecers with the view that state secularism should come above all else. Bill 21 states it clearly: "It is important that the paramountcy of State laicity be enshrined in Québec's legal order." The province's version of laicity is not quite the laïcité most commonly associated with France, which has a complete separation of religion from the public space, but it's not too far off either.

The law's supporters present the measure as being intrinsically part of the province's identity. Being a Quebecer, they say, means believing that religious symbols might be fine in private, but that public servants shouldn't be allowed to wear them, lest they impede their decision making at work. This view has some contradictions, most notably the fact that a large cross hung on the wall of the provincial Parliament in Quebec City for decades. The government initially argued that the cross was cultural, not religious, but finally took it down this month, in an attempt to show that Bill 21 applies equally to all religions.

Still, civil-liberties groups say the law is an example of rising xenophobia in Quebec. They argue that people who wear symbols of their religion in public already feel ostracized in Quebec; the new law makes it legal to deny them government jobs. The state's job is to protect minority rights, not curb them-and Bill 21 is doing precisely that, they contend.

But the government has presented the law as striking a delicate balance between personal and collective freedoms. "I think it's important for social coherence, for better living together that after 11 years we move on to other things," Premier Legault said earlier this year, referring to the 2008 government-appointed commission that called for "reasonable accommodation" as a way to better integrate immigrants into Quebec. In other words, with a majority in Quebec's Parliament to push the law through, the province can finally close this chapter once and for all.

Read: Why do governments try to keep banning Muslim veils?

For Abou Bakr, who works with the National Council of Canadian Muslims, an advocacy group, and recently graduated from Montreal's Concordia University with a degree in political science, Bill 21's passage is not the end of the story. She said it has ushered in a bigger fight against a measure she said is akin to "making Islamophobia legal"-something that she, a black Muslim woman who wears a head scarf, knows the impact of firsthand.

Abou Bakr listed recent incidents in which Muslim Quebecers say they have been victims of racially motivated harassment and violence: an elderly Muslim couple heckled by a neighbor; a family's home, brightly decorated for the Eid holiday, fired at with a BB gun; a passerby trying to yank a Muslim woman's niqab off in broad daylight; a woman denied a job by a private company because she wears a hijab. Documenting all these wrongs can seem daunting, especially because their frequency has been increasing over the past several years. In the most serious of these, a gunman opened fire inside a Quebec City mosque in January 2017, killing six people and wounding 19 others.
Read: Why did this happen in Canada?
Abou Bakr said she gets a report about a new Islamophobic incident every few days- and she has encouraged, as well as accompanied, Muslim women to file harassment reports with the police. Sitting in a café in a large, multicultural borough of Montreal only days before Bill 21 was passed, she acknowledged that the debate around the law had been painful. She fears it gives a green light to people to publicly voice their anti-Muslim views, or worse.

"If I just stay silent to any kind of oppression, big or small ... it's as if I'm saying it's okay," she told me. "And it's not okay."

Less than 24 hours after Bill 21 officially became law, NCCM and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association filed a lawsuit against its application. On July 9, a lawyer for the groups argued that the government is "legislating the practice of religion." The organizations are seeking a court injunction to keep the province from applying the law; a judge is expected to rule on the stay application this month. But Quebec has invoked a clause of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms that limits legal maneuvers.* Additionally, several questions around Bill 21 remain unanswered, such as how Quebec intends to enforce the legislation and whether the national government in Ottawa may step in.

That hasn't stopped people from voicing their anger. On June 17, hundreds rallied in front of Legault's Montreal office, the first major protest since the bill had been signed, a day earlier. I teach I do not convert read one sign. This is not my country read another. The mood was somber, as speaker after speaker described how the law makes them feel not quite Canadian, or Quebecer, enough. They vowed to keep fighting against the legislation.

Abou Bakr, too, said it's not time to give up.

"Tears are okay. It's okay to cry. It's okay to be sad. But when you're being oppressed and you actually live in a country where you get to speak up, being sad and crying is not enough," she said. "Even if you're alone, you've still got to do it. No one's going to do it for you."
* This article originally stated that Quebec invoked a clause of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, baring all challenges to Bill 21 for five years. The clause, however, prevents challenges only on specific sections of the Charter related to freedom of religion and other protected rights.

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broader canadian policy of multiculturalism

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What's Behind Quebec's Ban on Religious Symbols

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The Canadian province has a complicated relationship with its immigrant communities. Last month, it became the first place in North America to institute such a ban. MONTREAL-When Sarah Abou Bakr was in elementary school, an elderly woman mocked her mother's head scarf and shouted insults at her in a busy mall here.

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What is going on in Quebec and other parts of the World with issues surrounding wearing religious symbols?

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What is going on in Quebec and other parts of the World with issues surrounding wearing religious symbols?