ECtHR Rules Switzerland Did Not Violate Freedom of Religion by Requiring Muslim Girls to Participate in Swimming Program (January 10, 2017) [1]
On January 10, 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled [3] in Osmanoǧlu and Kocabaş v. Switzerland (only available in French) that Switzerland did not violate the right to freedom of religion enshrined in Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights [4] (ECHR) when it fined the parents of two Muslim girls for refusing to send their children to mandatory mixed gender swimming activities at their school. The applicants were two Swiss nationals with joint Turkish citizenship living in Basle, Switzerland. According to the press release [5], the Court “found that by giving precedence to the children’s obligation to follow the full school curriculum and their successful integration over the applicants’ private interest in obtaining an exemption from mixed swimming lessons for their daughters on religious grounds, the domestic authorities had not exceeded the considerable margin of appreciation afforded to them in the present case.”