Muslims swim against tide

PARIS - A debate is stirring in Europe over whether Muslims should be allowed to have closed-door sessions and apply an Islamic dress code at public swimming pools.

In the cities of Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Finland, numerous pools stage "women-only" sessions, with a female lifeguard or coach, that aim to encourage Muslim women to take to the water.

Supporters say the arrangement is a great way to improve health for Muslim women who otherwise would be too shy to swim in a mixed environment.

Critics, though, say the practice is a politically-correct sop that benefits segregation and fundamentalism.

Kellogg's Swim Active, a programme for non-swimmers launched by the cereal company in eight British regions, said that closed-session pools had helped remove a big psychological barrier.

A spokesperson said: "In Bradford, we held special closed sessions in one of the pools to get mums and their children swimming together. It's been a great success for families."

Ruth Ling, a Labour councillor in the south London borough of Lambeth, said: "I am generally not in favour of positive discrimination for women, but one area where I think segregation for women is a good idea is swimming. Cultural mores mean that Asian, and in particular Muslim, women don't want to use the facilities at the same time as men.

"Other women may be more likely to use swimming pools during female-only sessions because they are self-conscious about their bodies, or they don't like to feel they are being ogled."

Over the past two years, the female-only sessions have sparked occasional resentment in Britain about gender segregation. But now the debate has extended to religion, sparked by public pools that are hired out privately by Muslim groups which insist on a "modest" Islamic dress code.

Last week, the conservative British press blasted pools in London, the Midlands and Glasgow where participants were required to wear a garment covering the body from the neck to the ankles. They also attacked "special Muslim sessions" for men and boys, in which costumes had to cover the body from the navel to the knee.

"When attending, please adhere to the Islamic dress code [otherwise you will be refused entry]," says the website of the Norbury Islamic Academy in south London, which stages weekly women-only and men-only sessions at a local pool.

Ian Cawsey, Labour MP for the eastern England constituency of Brigg and Goole, told the Daily Telegraph: "Of course, swimming pools have basic codes of dress but it should not go beyond that. I don't think that in a local authority pool I should have to wear a particular type of clothes for the benefit of someone else. That's not integration or cohesion."

France has crushed attempts to cater separately for Muslims at public baths. Its sole experiment in women-only bathing was staged last year at a council pool in La Verpillere, a southern town where there is a large minority of people of North African descent. It was ended after just one two-hour session triggered an uproar.

"When something like this becomes a permanent arrangement, it becomes dangerous, because you perceive inequality of rights between boys and girls," the Minister for Urban Policies, Fadela Amara, herself of immigrant background, said.

Allotting a specific swimming session for women "can also hide pressures linked to religious fundamentalism".

This month, a pool in the Paris suburb of Emerainville barred a young Muslim woman when she tried to enter the water wearing a "burqini", a garment that looks rather like a wetsuit with a built-in hood. The reason given by pool officials was on the grounds of hygiene, but the move is in line with French policy, dating back to the 1789 Revolution, that public facilities are a secular arena.

In Switzerland, the country's top court last October declared that all children should be taught to swim in mixed classes. It threw out a suit by a Tunisian who had argued that his sons would be morally harmed by having to take lessons alongside their swimsuit-clad female classmates.

British academic Basil Mustafa, of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, said these policies highlight the different ways - either by the tradition of tolerance or by the force of law - by which European countries try to integrate their Muslim minorities.

Tension arises when societies have to interpret the notions of equality and rights of the individual, he said. Barring observant Muslims from hiring out a swimming pool also denies these women the possibility of enriching their life through swimming.

"Each European country has its own way of dealing with faith communities," he said. "Certain frameworks are less favourable to some faith groups than others ... One can't really help think it is partly to do with prejudice, not necessarily just against Muslims but prejudice against the role of religion in public life."