rejected the claims of discrimination under Article 14 in conjunction with Article 9 ECHR as manifestly illfounded, because French law applied to all conspicuous religious symbols. The above overview of the ECtHR’s case law reveals that individuals practising minority religions may suffer adverse treatment in education because they may be excluded from educational activities for dressing in accordance with their religious beliefs. Furthermore, the ECtHR’s approach in the headscarf cases seems to disregard the notion of indirect discrimination, as the Court fails to assess the disproportionate effect of neutral rules on religious minorities, particularly women. Overall, the ECtHR’s headscarf case law is disappointing, because the Court deals with these cases under Article 9 ECHR only and has refused to consider the applicants’ claims under Article 14 ECHR on non-discrimination based on sex together with the ground of religion under Article 9 ECHR, or dealt with these claims inadequately. As a result, the notion of ‘intersectionality’ has yet to find its way into the ECtHR’s case law. Although the ECHR does not contain special minority rights, the ECtHR has consistently taken into consideration the needs of minorities in other contexts.93 It is essential that the Court adopts a similar approach to the right of minorities to manifest their religious symbols. This can be done through granting states a very narrow margin of discretion in such cases. The ECtHR decisions contrast starkly with the UN HRC decision in Hudoyberganova v Uzbekistan.94 The applicant, a university student, was precluded from wearing a headscarf to public university. She was excluded from the university on 25 March 1998. On 15 May 1998, Uzbekistan adopted a Law on the Liberty of Conscience and Religious Organizations. Article 14 of this law explicitly banned wearing of religious dress in public places. Pursuant to this law the applicant was expelled from the university because of her refusal to remove her headscarf. She brought a claim before the HRC and alleged that Uzbekistan violated her freedom of religion under Article 18 ICCPR. In its assessment the HRC first emphasized that the freedom to manifest a religion encompasses wearing of religious dress in public. Furthermore, it considered that to ‘prevent a person from wearing religious clothing in public or private may constitute a violation of article 18, paragraph 2, which prohibits any coercion that would impair the individual’s freedom to have or adopt a religion’.95 The HRC has already affirmed this approach in its General Comment No. 22 on freedom of religion: policies or practices aimed to coerce individuals based on their beliefs, such as restricting access to education, are inconsistent with Article 18(2).96 The HRC found that, by imposing such limitation, Uzbekistan violated Article 18(2) ICCPR on freedom of religion, because the state failed to justify this ban on the permitted grounds under Article 18(3). The HRC emphasized that this finding is without either prejudging the right of a state party to limit expressions of religion and belief in the context of Article 18 of the Covenant, or prejudging the right of academic institutions to adopt specific regulations relating to their own functioning.97 The case demonstrates that one aspect of Article 18 ICCPR is particularly significant: paragraph 2 of the provision precludes coercion based on religion, for example, through denial of access to education. Race and ethnicity Where discrimination based on race and ethnic origin is concerned, recent jurisprudence of the ECtHR marks a significant development in this area. Thus, in Nachova v Bulgaria,98 the applicants claimed that their close relatives Mr Kuncho Angelov and Mr Kiril Petkov had been shot and killed by military police in violation of Article 2 ECHR. In addition, the applicants alleged that the impugned events were the result of prejudice and a hostile attitude towards persons of Roma origin, and that these discriminatory attitudes breached Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 2 ECHR. Both the Chamber and the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR established that Article 2 ECHR precludes the use of firearms to arrest persons ‘who, like Mr Angelov and Mr Petkov, were suspected of having committed nonviolent offences, were not armed and did not pose any threat to the arresting officers or others’.99 Due to the use of ‘grossly excessive force’100 and a lack of an effective investigation of the deprivation of life, there had been a violation of Article 2. The applicants also alleged a violation of Article 14 ECHR in that discriminatory attitudes towards persons of Roma origin led up to the deaths of Mr Angelov and Mr Petkov; moreover, the authorities had failed in their duty to investigate possible racist motives in their killing. In their assessment, the Chamber and the Grand Chamber arrived at different conclusions: the Chamber decided that there was a violation of Article 14 read in conjunction with Article 2 ECHR in its substantive aspect, while the Grand Chamber found that there was a violation of these provisions in their procedural aspect. Thus, the Chamber maintained that Articles 2 and 14 ECHR together impose a duty on state authorities to conduct an effective investigation irrespective of the victim’s racial or ethnic origin; moreover, where there is ‘suspicion that racial attitudes induced a violent act it is particularly important that the official investigation is pursued with vigour and impartiality…’ 101 Having established that, on MINORITY GROUPS AND LITIGATION: A REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL JURISPRUDENCE 11