A Norwegian administrative court on Friday said a ban on police women wearing the Islamic headscarf was illegal, in response to a government refusal in 2009 to allow officers to don the hijab.
The Norwegian Equality Tribunal said in a non-binding opinion that the ban ran counter to the country's freedom of religion and anti-discrimination laws by depriving a whole category of women from access to the police profession.
"The official objective is for the police to mirror Norwegian society as a whole," the tribunal wrote in its ruling. "The society is multi-cultural and diverse, and the police should also illustrate this diversity, precisely to allow it to maintain trust at large" among the population, it added. [AFP] Read more
