CCPR/C/123/D/2807/2016 Annex III Individual opinion of Committee member Yadh Ben Achour (dissenting) 1. In both cases set out in communications Nos. 2747/2016 and 2807/2016, the Committee notes that the State party, by adopting Act No. 2010-1192 of 11 October 2010, prohibiting the concealment of the face in public, has violated the rights of the authors under articles 18 and 26 of the Covenant. I regret that I am unable to share this opinion for the following reasons. 2. First, I am surprised at the Committee’s statement that “the State party has not demonstrated how wearing the full-face veil in itself poses a threat to public safety or public order that would justify such an absolute ban”. I shall not dwell on the threat to public safety, which appears self-evident given the ongoing battle against terrorists, some of whom have carried out attacks and assassinations in France and elsewhere disguised with niqabs. Security considerations alone justify both prohibition and criminalization. I shall, however, spend more time on the meaning of the phrase “protect order” read conjointly with “protect the morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others” in article 18 (3) of the Covenant. 3. In that article, the term “order” clearly refers to that of the State at the origin of the restriction. In France, under its Constitution, the order is republican, secular and democratic. Equality between men and women is among the most fundamental principles of that order, just as it is among the most fundamental principles of the Covenant. The niqab in itself is a symbol of the stigmatization and degrading of women and as such contrary to the republican order and gender equality in the State party, but also to articles 3 and 26 of the Covenant. Defenders of the niqab reduce women to their primary biological status as females, as sexual objects, flesh without mind or reason, potentially to blame for cosmic and moral disorder, and in consequence obliged to remove themselves from the male gaze and thus be virtually banished from the public space. A democratic State cannot allow such stigmatization, which sets them apart from all other women. Wearing the niqab violates the “fundamental rights and freedoms of others” or, more precisely, the rights of other women and of women as such. Its prohibition is therefore not contrary to the Covenant. 4. I agree with the Committee that the restrictions provided for under article 18 (3) must be interpreted strictly. However, “strictly” does not mean that the restrictions need not respect the other provisions of the Covenant, or the spirit of article 18 itself, as I have explained in the preceding paragraph. 5. The Committee admits in both cases that “wearing the niqab or the burka amounts to wearing a garment that is customary for a segment of the Muslim faithful and that it is the performance of a rite or practice of a religion”. However, the Committee does not explain the mysterious transformation of a custom into a religious obligation as part of worship, within the meaning of article 18 of the Covenant. The truth is that the wearing of the niqab or the burka is a custom followed in certain countries called “Muslim countries” that, under the influence of political Islamism and a growing puritanism, has been artificially linked to certain verses from the Qur’an, in particular to verse 31 of the Surah of Light and verse 59 of the Surah of the Confederates. However, the most knowledgeable authorities on Islam do not recognize concealing the face as a religious obligation. Even allowing, as the Committee wishes to do, that the wearing of the niqab may be interpreted as an expression of freedom of religion, it must not be forgotten that not all interpretations are equal in the eyes of a democratic society that has founded its legal system on human rights and the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the Covenant, and that has enshrined the principle of secularism within its Constitution – all the more so given the particular historical and legal context of France. Certain interpretations simply cannot be tolerated. 6. The same holds true for polygamy, excision, inequality in inheritance, repudiation of a wife, a husband’s right to discipline his wife and levirate and sororate practices. All those constitute, for their practitioners, religious obligations or rites, just as wearing the full-face veil does for followers of that custom. But the Committee has always considered the former 18