Özet:

Freedom to wear religious symbols or clothing, which is an important component of the freedom of religion and conscience, continues to be one of the permanent topics of the European human rights agenda. The discussions which were initially centered around the Islamic headscarf have, in recent years, included other religious symbols like kippah, cross and Sikh turban and finally expanded to the ban on the burqa and the face veil in public space. The European Court of Human Rights who didn’t consider, in a significant number of the cases, the restrictions on wearing religious symbols -especially in Turkey and France- as a violation of freedom of religion and leaved a wide margin of appreciation to the states in this regard, has been the target of criticism. However the United Nations Human Rights Committee has adopted a different approach and found a violation of the said freedom concerning similar and sometimes identical individual applications. This study aims to reveal the difference between the Court’s and Commitee’s approaches by analysing relevant case law and tries to find an answer to the question of how the state obligations arising from human rights treaties should be interpreted faced with this situation

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