The European Court of Justice has ruled that municipalities may bar “the visible wearing in the workplace of any sign revealing philosophical or religious beliefs,” as long as the rule is “applied in a general and indiscriminate manner to all of that administration’s staff and is limited to what is strictly necessary.”
A Muslim employee of the municipality of Ans, a small city in Belgium, filed suit after she was barred from wearing her headscarf; she maintained that her religious freedom was infringed.