Austria hotel’s burkini ban discriminatory, court finds

A woman wears a burkini, a full-body swimsuit designed for Muslim women. (AFP)

An Austrian court has found an Alpine hotel’s ban on burkinis discriminatory, the tribunal confirmed to AFP on Wednesday, a politically explosive ruling in a country where the far right is on the rise.

The full-body bathing suit favoured by some Muslim women has become a bugbear of the European far right, which has campaigned to restrict Muslim dress in public spaces.

In a ruling made public this week, the Salzburg Court found that the hotel in the western ski resort of St. Johann im Pongau had discriminated against two Austrian Muslim women by preventing them from wearing the garment.

After a heated argument with the manager, who insisted that the burkini was unhygienic and made other guests feel uncomfortable, the women filed a complaint about the incident last year.

The local authorities then fined the hotel 100 euros (US$114) in February, prompting the establishment’s manager to appeal.

But in its late June ruling the court rejected the appeal as “unfounded”, ordering the hotel to pay a 20-euro fee on top of the fine to cover procedural costs.

It found that the hotel manager’s argument that the garment was unhygienic “does not hold water, as burkinis are made from the same materials as other swimwear and routine water checks found no irregularities”.

The presiding judge however told AFP that the ruling would not set a nationwide precedent, “as indirect discrimination is permissible under certain conditions”.

Austria does not explicitly restrict Muslim dress for women and girls above the age of 14.

But the law forbids face-masks in public spaces, in effect preventing Muslim women from wearing the burqa and niqab.

As the burkini covers the whole body apart from the face, hands and feet, the swimsuit does not fall foul of the rules.

The burkini has become a political hot potato in several European countries, notably in France.

Attempts by local mayors in the south of France to ban the burkini on Mediterranean beaches in 2016 were eventually overturned by the courts, but not before kicking off a political firestorm.

Several other European countries, including the Netherlands and Denmark, have banned the face-covering burqa and niqab.