An Australian woman flew to France to wear her burkini on the beach after 30 cities banned women from wearing the full-piece swim suit.
Zeynab Alshelh, a 23-year-old medical student from Sydney, stood on the French Riviera with her mother, both wearing the controversial burkini, Channel Seven’s program Sunday Night reported.
Despite France’s highest administrative court over turning the ban, the women were less than welcome on the beach.
‘I just wanted to see it for myself, I wanted to see what is going on here,’ Alshelh told the program.
It wasn’t long before they were forced to leave.
‘We were threatened by locals to leave the beach and if we didn’t they were going to call the police,’ she said.
‘They weren’t happy with us being there, even though it was on the beach that the burkini ban was overturned but the locals were not happy.’
She added: ‘There shouldn’t be a connection between terrorism and the burkini and there shouldn’t be a connection between terrorism and Islam altogether.’
Alshelh’s experience comes months after photos of police in Nice forcing a muslim woman to remove her burkini.
The Aussie designer who invented the burkini, Aheda Zanetti, write an article for The Guardian in August, saying she designed ‘to give women freedom, not take it away.’
‘When I named it the burkini I didn’t really think it was a burqa for the beach. Burqa was just a word for me – I’d been brought up in Australia all my life, and I’d designed this swimsuit and I had to call it something quickly. It was the combination of two cultures – we’re Australians but we are also Muslim by choice.’
You may also like…
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
