Council Of Europe-Funded Pro-Hijab Campaign By Muslim Brotherhood Youth Group Pulled After French Backlash

UK media is report­ing that posters from a pro-hijab cam­paign orga­nized by the Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO) and fund­ed by the Coun­cil of Europe have been pulled com­plaints by sev­er­al promi­nent French politi­cians. Accord­ing to a BBC article:

Novem­ber 3, 2021 Europe’s top human rights organ­i­sa­tion has pulled posters from a cam­paign that pro­mot­ed respect for Mus­lim women who choose to wear head­scarves after pro­vok­ing oppo­si­tion in France.  The Coun­cil of Europe released the images last week for a cam­paign against anti-Mus­lim dis­crim­i­na­tion.  A slo­gan on one advert read: “Beau­ty is in diver­si­ty as free­dom is in hijab”.  Sev­er­al promi­nent French politi­cians con­demned the mes­sage and argued the hijab did not rep­re­sent free­dom.  But some Mus­lim women who wear head­scarves said the reac­tion showed a lack of respect for diver­si­ty and the right to choose what to wear in France.  France’s youth min­is­ter, Sarah El Haïry, said she was shocked by one poster, which showed a split image of one women wear­ing a hijab, and one not.  In an inter­view on French TV, the min­is­ter sug­gest­ed the poster had encour­aged women to wear head­scarves. She said this mes­sage jarred with the sec­u­lar val­ues of France, which had expressed its dis­ap­proval of the cam­paign. […] The cam­paign was the prod­uct of two online work­shops held in Sep­tem­ber and organ­ised in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Femyso, a forum of Mus­lim youth organ­i­sa­tions across Europe. […] The pres­i­dent of Femyso, Hande Tan­er, defend­ed the cam­paign on Wednes­day in an inter­view with the BBC.  She said “the cam­paign itself is still on” but added: “As for why the tweet was delet­ed, I can’t speak on behalf of the Coun­cil of Europe.”

Read the rest here.

FEMYSO is the youth/student arm of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims, known to rep­re­sent the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. One of the impor­tant lead­ers of FEMYSO over the years has been Ger­man Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Ibrahim El-Zay­at. In recent times, its lead­er­ship has been drawn from the fam­i­ly of impor­tant Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers. Almost all of the FEMYSO mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions are also tied to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. Over the years, FEMYSO has devel­oped rela­tion­ships with the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, and many oth­er sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tions at the Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al levels.

The Coun­cil of Europe is an orga­ni­za­tion of 47 mem­ber states, 27 of which are mem­bers of the Euro­pean Union. It seeks to pro­tect democ­ra­cy and human rights and to pro­mote Euro­pean uni­ty by fos­ter­ing coop­er­a­tion on legal, cul­tur­al, and social issues. FEMYSO Head of Media Hande Tan­er is a mem­ber of the Coun­cil of Europe’s Advi­so­ry Coun­cil on Youth.