Hijab

In a neighborhood peppered with beauty shops, what makes Shamso Hair Studio and Spa unique is not the silver and black décor — or even the henna body art or the hammam steam spa — it is who is allowed in and who is not. 

France’s courts have upheld the full-face veil ban, saying it did not violate religious freedom. A panel of UN human rights experts disagrees. Does the ban further marginalize France’s minority Muslim population?

Last December, a woman in Tehran stood on top of a utility box, hung her white headscarf on a stick and started waving it silently. She was protesting the compulsory covering of women in the Islamic Republic. Since then, some others have followed.

In Egypt, numerous bars and restaurants that target an affluent clientele have some sort of veil ban in place — that includes headscarves like the hijab or other forms of Islamic headdress as well as the niqab where only a woman’s eyes can be seen.

Samia Orosemane is a French stand-up comedian of Tunisian descent, who jokes about stereotypes of Africans and Muslim women … and of course, about her mother.